Khandvi - A Gujarati snack

We are hungry. There is nothing that proves this more than the fact that I havent been able to click a single photograph of a dish before wolfing it down over the past months. Blogging requires discipline and blogging about food requires restraint both of which have been happily absent in my world for some time now. My little boy is 7 months old and time flew like the blink of an eye. My sweet daughter is nearly 7 years old and is discerning when it comes to food. But to my delight, she is imbibing tolerance in her approach to home cooked food. For her nothing compares to home cooked food which is a boon but can be a pain on days when I want to take off. I love her and love cooking for her. She is my biggest cheer leader when it comes to making new dishes. But she is not the worst critic since she will only procrastinate eating anything she doesnt like by looks or taste.

Yesterday I made a nice little snack for those after school hunger pangs. It was in her favourite colour too!
Khandvi is a gujarati snack made out of besan (chickpea flour) and butter milk mainly. Thin rolls of the cooked flour served seasoned, with or without a delicious filling. I thinned home made yogurt to obtain butter milk. Since bland or sweet tastes are not appreciated in my house, I spiced up the dish with heat from green chillies.

The only decision point in this dish is when the flour is ready to spread. And the other important note to remember is to use ungreased surface for spreading. I went through a few blogs which said the surface has to be greased but with that I could not roll at all. I wasted atleast 10-15 mins thinking the batter was not ready for the spread. But as soon as I wiped off the grease and spread, I could roll easily. Hence a word of warning.
Stuffing in khandvi is optional and can be left plain. Folks at my house did not relish it without the stuffing so I didnt have much of a choice but to add filling. I personally liked either.
I have also provided some pictures of the stages of the batter while cooking. Spreading and rolling pictures are also provided. Hope that helps.

Khandvi 

Recipe adapted from here
Servings: 16 - 18 rolls (2 inches in width)
Prep Time: 10 mins  Cook Time: 40 mins

Ingredients

1 cup Besan (Chick pea flour)
3/4 cup thick Yogurt
2 1/4 cup Water
2 tsp Lime juice
1/2 - 1 tsp Turmeric
Pinch of Hing
1/2 tsp Salt or to taste

Grind

3- 4 Green chillies
1/2 inch Ginger

Stuff

1 cup Coriander (cut fine)
1/4 cup grated Coconut (optional)

Season

3 tsp Oil
2 tsp Mustard seeds
2 Green chillies (cut very fine)
20 Curry leaves (cut very fine)

Instructions

1. Coarse grind green chillies and ginger with a couple of spoons of water.
2. Mix coriander and coconut required for the suffing
3. Keep the flat spreading surface ready. I used backs of steel thali plates as well as aluminium foil and both worked very well. Do not grease them.
4. Add water to the yogurt and mix well using a wire whisk or a fork.
5. To this add the ginger chilli paste, turmeric, hing and salt and mix well.
6. Now add the besan in while stirring and ensure that there are no lumps formed. Whisk till it is a smooth batter. Atlernately use an electric beater to make life easier.
7. Cook this batter in a heavy bottomed vessel, on low heat, while continously stirring. The batter should not become lumpy or stick to the bottom of the vessel. 
8. Continue to stir and cook while the batter becomes thick.
9. The readiness of the batter can be checked by spread a spoonful on a plate. Wait for around five minutes for it to cool and then roll from the edge. If it rolls it is ready else cook some more. 
10. When the batter is ready, work fast to spread it on the surfaces. The batter should not become overtly thick since it becomes difficult to spread. Ofcourse we do have a window of 5-10 mins. I took that much time to spread it on all available surfaces and the batter had not  become thicker or harder. 
11. Take a blob of the batter and spread it using a spatula on to the flat surface. Spread it thin.
12. Leave it to cool for nearly 10 mins.
13. If making a stuffed khandvi, then spread the stuffing evenly on top of the cooled batter.
14. Slice the spread batter into long strips, around 2 inches wide.
15. Pick up the end of the strip, at the shorter end and start rolling. 
16. Place all the rolls onto a serving plate.
17. Now prepare the seasoning by heating oil in a heavy bottomed vessel, add in mustard seeds. 
18. When the seeds crackle, add in finely cut green chillies and curry leaves. 
19. Spoon the filling onto the rolls.
20. Serve Khandvi warm.
21. Khandvi can also be prepared ahead of time. Refridgerate the rolls, warm (I used microwave oven) and season before serving.