Baked Indian savory crackers- Namak Para

Recipe

• whole wheat flour-2 cups
• all purpose flour- 1 cup
• gram flour/ besan- 1 cup
• salt- 1 tsp or to taste
• turmeric powder- 1/2 tsp
• red chili powder (or as per taste)- 1 tsp
• black pepper- 1/2 tsp
• baking soda- 1/2 tsp
• nigella seeds- 2 tsp
• carrom seeds- 1 tsp
•  oil/ clarified butter (ghee)- 1/2 cup
• water- 1 cup (or as needed to make a firm dough)
• dried fenugreek leaves- 1/2 cup

Method

1. Begin with mixing the flours in a bowl. Add in the spices, fenugreek leaves and oil/ghee and using your hands, mix together till the flour starts to resemble bread crumbs.
2. Now, slowly start adding in the water and kneading into a dough. The dough should be firm, not too soft.
3. Once the dough is ready, cover it with a damp cloth and let it rest for about 15 minutes.
4. Once the dough has rested enough, divide the dough into 4-5 parts and roll it out into a circle of 3-4 mm thickness. Using a knife, cut into diamonds and then with a fork, poke holes into the dough diamonds. Poking holes prevents the crackers from fluffing up upon baking/frying and helps in even cooking.

You can either Fry the namak para (which is the traditional way) or can take a slightly healthier route and bake these. Either ways, the result is crunchy crackers, so choose your own style. If you decide to bake, like i did mine, pre-heat the oven at 350F till ready.

For fried Namak Para

Take a frying pan and add atleast 1 inch of oil into it to ensure that the crackers can fry easily without touching the base of the pan. Heat the oil to high. Once hot, add in one cracker to check the temperature, if the cracker comes on the surface of the oil as soon as you put it in the oil, the oil is hot enough. If it sinks, the oil is not hot enough to begin the frying.

Once the oil is hot, fry small batches at a time and cook on medium flame so that the paras get cooked while frying and not brown up really fast. Each batch should take about 5-7 minutes.

For Baked Namak Para

Pre-heat the oven at 375 F till ready. Take a baking tray and grease it. Now, place the diamond crackers on the tray and keep a little space between the pieces as the crackers will expand a little upon baking. Bake each side of the crackers for 7-10 minutes * on each side or till crunchy.

*Keep an eye on the crackers while baking because they tend to brown up really fast and can burn.