Indian Cooking Challenge: Thekua (Indian Biscuit)

Indian Cooking Challenge: A great initiative by Srivalli of  Spice your life. Every month all members prepare a traditional Indian dish from different states and post it sharing their experience while exploring the recipe. Though I joined in last month but owing to my travelling I couldn't participate.. But here is my experience with this month's recipe.


This month's challenge recipe was Thekua, an Indian Biscuit from the state of Bihar, commonly called Khajur.. I remember hogging on to it while I was a kid, never imagining that in future I would ever be making it myself.


Thekua is a tea-time snack made of wheat flour & jaggery/sugar.. they could be either deep fried or baked.. can be stored for upto a month in an airtight container. Since it was my first attempt with biscuits, I decided to stick to smaller portions:


Whole Meal Flour (Or Wheat Flour) - 1 cup
Sugar - 3 Tablespoons - powdered
Dry Coconut - 3 Tablespoons
Cardamom Powder - a pinch (I used freshly grounded powder from cardamom seeds)
Sooji - 3 Tablespoons
Ghee  - 3-4 Tablespoons (for kneading)
Water
Ghee - for frying


Mix the flour, dry coconut, sooji, cardamom powder & powdered sugar in a bowl. Add ghee and rub the mixture with your fingers till it gets becomes crumbly (texture like bread crumbs)

Slowly sprinkle little water to make a stiff dough. The dough needs to be very stiff enough (like a big lump)

Leave it for 10 mins. Then take small portions of it and shape them round (like cookies) with greasy hands. I did not have a cookie cutter or an impression mould so I used my hands :) 

Heat ghee in a pan and fry the cookies.  The oil should be moderately hot so that the cookie is cooked well from inside too. Fry till golden brown & crisp. I wanted to try baking as well thus, I baked half the biscuits. Preheat the oven at 350 F and line cookies in a greased tin. 5 mins of baking and cookies were ready :) 

Goes perfect with tea :)

 

A big thanks to my frend Leena for helping me with the recipe.

Pleased to link this recipe to Anu's Cooking with Spices - Cardamom