My Nani's Nankhatai
I am the first to admit that my baking skills are sort of hopeless. Still, though, I keep trying out new recipes in hopes that they will click. Somewhere in the midst of all the temperature changes and the eggs, I seem to get a bit lost. Eventually, after one such experience, after my mom mentioning a kind of cookie called nankhatai from her childhood, I finally decided to call my grandmother for a recipe. Nankhatai is a kind of cardamom shortbread. The process is simple: combine six parts flour (preferably with some of the flour being besan, or chickpea flour) with one part sugar (I use one of the steel bowls called “katori” around my house to measure these proportions out), a few pods of cardamom that you grind right before mixing it in, some baking powder, some salt, and enough ghee (clarified butter), whipped with the sugar, to make everything into a crumbly dough. It’s deliciously buttery, sweet yet a little more savory than expected, and complex in flavor despite the ease of its ...