Bengali Kucho Nimki - Salted fried crackers

“Kucho Nimki” or “Namak Para” is a diamond shaped salty pastry seasoned with kalonji. Kucho Nimki or salted fried crackers are part of Bengali cuisine since ages. Bengalis love this snack with tea in afternoon like anything. Especially it is served during our biggest festival Durga Puja. It actually is not very healthy as it contains maida and deep fried but it is so tasty that I cannot keep it outside my blog anymore. It is very easy to prepare and requires minimal items. The preparation time is also short making it one of the options available during sudden guest arrival. Please check it out:-

Preparation Time: - 15 min

 

Cooking Time: - 20 min

 

Servings: - 4~5 person

 

Ingredients:- 

1. 1 cup Maida i.e. All-purpose flour
2. ½ tsp Sugar
3. 3 tbsp Ghee or clarified butter
4. 1 tbsp Kalonji / Nigella seeds / KaloJeera
5. ¼ tsp Baking powder
6. Sufficient vegetable oil for deep frying ( I used Sunflower oil but you can use any vegetable oil like canola or olive oil)
7. Salt to taste

Preparation:-

1.    Take a medium sized bowl and pour Maida along with Salt, Sugar, Kalonji & baking powder. Mix really well.

2.    Now add the Ghee and mix well with the Maida mixture. You can use 50:50 mixture of vegetable oil and ghee if you want to reduce the cholesterol content of this recipe.

3.    Now add little water sequentially to make the dough. The dough should be firm but smooth. Knead the dough thoroughly to make it even and smooth. Cover the dough with damp cloth neatly and keep aside.

4.    Wait for about ½ hour.

5.    After 30 minutes take the dough and divide the dough into two equal size balls and roll each ball to make round shaped of about 4 inch diameter. The circle should not be very thin like Roti. It should be like paratha.

6.    Prick each circle with a fork in 10 to 12 places, (it is to prevent puffing the nimkies when frying).

7.    Now cut the circle in small diamond shapes.

8.    Take a deep bottom vessel or frying pan / kadai and heat sufficient oil for frying. Frying pan should have at least 1 inch of oil. To check if the oil is ready, put a small piece of dough in the oil. The dough should make the oil sizzle and come up very slowly.

9.    Reduce the burner to low heat and fry the diamond shaped nimkies until they turn golden brown in colour to make them crispy. If you fry in medium / high heat the nimkies won’t be crispy.

10.Remove them from oil by a slotted spoon and spread onto paper towel. This will soak the excess oil from them.

Serve them hot as snacks with tea or coffee. Once they are cooled till room temperature you can store them in an airtight container. They should be ok for a month.

As always please feel free to comment, criticize and seek if any help is required. I am all ears.