Dum Ke Rote

I have signed up for Srivalli's month long marathon this April, with the theme of "Indian states". It is giving me an opportunity to explore the regional, culinary heritage of India and the first one in the series is going to be my home state "Andhra Pradesh". The state can be classified geographically into three regions - Andhra, Rayalaseema and Telangana. I am very well acquainted with the first two regions, being connected to them through my parents and husband. Telangana is the region that I am not familiar with and I wanted to try something from this region. 

Hyderabad is a part of Telangana and is the home for another culinary heritage, the Hyderabadi cuisine that was greatly influenced by the muslim reign there. I have noticed that the hindus are less familiar with several of the recipes that are popular among the muslim community there. Dum ke rote is one such Hyderabadi recipe that I wanted to try ever since I saw them on Mona's blog. She has a wonderful collection of recipes from the region. for people who are interested. Dum ke rote are semolina based cookies, baked / cooked in dum. These cardamom flavored cookies are soft from inside and crunchy outside. They are deceptively plain looking but are very addictive.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup almonds
1/2 cup pistachios 
3 & 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3 cups fine semolina (not semolina flour)
3 cups sugar
1 & 1/2 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp cardamom powder
3/4 cup unsweetened khoya
1 cup warm milk
1 cup warm ghee
Almond and pistachio flakes to garnish

Note:
I used 1/3 of the ingredients and got 4 rotes. Actually could have made 5. The rotes spread while baking and the 6 inched unbaked ones yielded 8 inched rotes. And I think making small sized ones is a smart option both for storage and consumption purposes.

Method:
* Soak almonds and pistachios in water overnight. Drain and peel off the skins in the morning.
* Grind almonds, pistachios and khoya to a fine paste adding warm milk.
* Combine all purpose flour, semolina, sugar, baking powder and cardamom powder in a mixing bowl.
* Add the nut-khoya paste to the flour mixture and mix well to form a firm dough. Add extra milk if needed to form the dough. The dough was a little on the sticky side. Knead the dough and allow to rest it for about an hour. Remove, knead the dough again and put it back to rest once again for another hour.

* Preheat the oven to 350 deg F.
* Divide the dough into 13 - 15 portions.
* Cover baking sheets with aluminium foil and grease them. Gently pat each portion into a thin circle of about 6 inches in diameter.

* Bake for about 10 - 15 minutes or until the edges and the bottom side starts to brown. Broil on low for 2 to 5 minutes until they turn golden brown uniformly. Keep an eye through the broiling part and don't let them burn. Remove, cool and store them in an airtight container.



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