Gujurati Khandvi

A few weeks ago, my mom took a week off of work to spend some time with me. I absolutely loved cooking together and observing her in the kitchen. As cliche as this sounds, my mom is the best cook I know! My passion for cooking definitely comes from her. In fact, both her and my dad are such troopers, they're the true reason as to why I can cook so much, manage a full time job, double grad school, and now this blog!

The best part about this quarantine is getting a chance to finally learn some of my FAVORITE recipes from her. Now if you know how brown moms are, they just say a dash of this and "praman nu" of that. It is impossible to recreate their recipes, but this time around, I used normal teaspoons and cups to measure out everything as accurately as possible so that I could write this recipe up for y'all! I'm excited to present this recipe to you because khandvi is LITERALLY my favorite and I can eat it for DAYS.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 cups of Besan (gram flour)

• 1.5 cups of yogurt (desi dahi)

• 4.5-4.75 cups of water

• 1 teaspoon turmeric (haldi)

• 1.5 teaspoons of salt (or per taste)

• 1-2 teaspoon of hing (asafoetida)

• 3-4 teaspoons of ginger+garlic+chilli paste

• For the tadka:

  • 3 tablespoons of oil (vegetable or olive)

  • 10-12 curry leaves

  • 2-3 teaspoon mustard seeds

  • 4 teaspoons of white sesame seeds

  • 2 green chilli, cut in splits

• For the garnishing:

  • Coriander leaves optional

  • Coconut leaves optional

Preparation

1. Making the Batter - In a bowl add the yogurt and water. Using a whisk, mix really well until even and smooth. It should resemble a buttermilk consistency. It makes a difference if you use desi dahi vs normal yogurt because desi dahi tends to be a little sour, adding to the taste of the mixture well. Also add the ginger-chilli paste, haldi, asafoetida, and salt. Mix well.

2. Next, add the besan (gram flour). For this part, use the whisk again to make sure the batter is even and there are no lumps. If there’s lumps, your batter won’t cook evenly or spread smoothly in later steps.

3. Before you cook the batter, line a couple of 11x13 foil sheets (or multiple long strips of foil), spread it with oil (or cooking spray) and keep it ready for the next step.

4. Then, heat your pan (nonstick works great in this) and add your batter in slowly. You’ll slowly notice the batter getting thicker, using a spatula, keep on mixing and stirring the batter. Eventually, as the batter gets thicker, you’ll notice that when you pick up the batter with your spatula, it won’t fall back in the pan and instead it’ll stick to the spatula. This is how you know it’s done and it’s ready to be spread on your foil paper. You can also check by placing a small amount of batter on the foil and spreading it, if it spreads evenly, it’s ready. Do not let the batter stick to the bottom or burn while in the pan. The batter took about 18-20 minutes to cook perfectly for me.

5. Once your batter is ready, add a few tablespoons at a time to the foil and spread evenly until it’s smooth. Think of this like spreading frosting on a cake, you want to make sure it’s even and fully spread apart in a thin layer. The thinner the layer, the better it will roll when cold. You have to add the batter very quickly to the foil otherwise the mixture will cool down and you won’t be able to spread.. First focus on spreading the batter fast and evenly on the foil. The rolling part will come later.

6. After your batter has cooled on the foil, cut about 2 inch strips vertically on the foil so that you have strips about 7-8 inches long lengthwise and 2 inches in width. Depending on your foil length, you should get 5-6 khandvi rolls per foil.

7. Once you’re ready, begin rolling slowly in a slow motion until you form a roll. If you’ve seen how rolled ice cream is formed, you want to do the same with this batter, slowly roll until your roll is formed. Do this with all of the other foils/batter and leave aside in a platter.

8. Finally, add tadka to your khandvi rolls. To do this, heat oil, once hot, add mustard seeds (wait till they crackle), then add sesame seeds, curry leaves, and chillies.

9. Pour the tadka all over the khandvi rolls and garnish with coconut or coriander leaves (optional).

10. Enjoy!

Tips

• Spatula works best for spreading the batter on to the foil evenly, as does an offset spatula.

• Have a friend or family member help you quickly spread the batter on to the foil. For example, one person can put the batter on the foil and the other can spread right away.

• This can be served as a side dish or snack!