ICC: Khara Biscuit

Nibbles

It’s June 15th and time for another foray into the Indian Cooking Challenge! This month we have a spicy, savory shortbread called a Khara Biscuit from the recipe files of Champa. Unlike the fluffy, leavened biscuits we’re familiar with, this unleavened biscuit is more of a cookie. Studded with chiles and cilantro they make a nice snack or accompaniment to a meal.

Khara Biscuits

Iyengar Bakery-style Khara Biscuit

Ingredients:
2 cups All-Purpose Flour
1 tsp Salt
6 Green Chiles, finely diced
3 Tbsp chopped Cilantro
6 Tbsp Butter, softened
4 tsp Sugar
3 Tbsp Plain Yogurt, plus more as needed (I used a total of 6 Tbsp, I think)

Putting it all together:

Preheat your oven to 325° Fahrenheit and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Mixing the dry ingredients In a bowl, whisk together flour and salt. Toss in the chopped chiles and cilantro until both are coated with a fine layer of flour and set aside.
The creamed butter and sugar, adding the yogurt In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Add the yogurt and continue to beat until fully incorporated.

The fully-mixed dough With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients and mix slowly, adding more yogurt as needed to get a dry but workable dough. Be careful not to overwork the dough as it could become tough.
Forming the biscuits without a cookie cutter The original recipe suggests rolling out to dough to 1/4″ thick and cutting them with round cookie cutters. I found the dough difficult to roll so opted to scoop even portions of the dough and flattened them with my hands.
The finished biscuits, top and golden-brown bottom Bake for 18-20 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through cooking. They’ll stay pretty pale but the bottoms will turn golden brown. Depending on the thickness of your biscuits, they may need a little more than 20 minutes (mine took about 25).

The original recipe mentioned using mint in place of the cilantro and I might have to make them again, just to try it out. The spicy cookies were a nice counterpoint to the sweet-garlic-eggplant we had that evening for dinner.

Khara Biscuits with Spicy Garlic Eggplant