Pecanikki - I got excited, she got excited!


Brittle - consisting of flat broken pieces of hard sugar candy embedded with nuts such as pecans, almonds and peanuts. It has many variations around the world, such as the Greek pasteli, Frechn croquant, gachak in Indian Punjab, chikki in other parts of India. Basically, a mixture of sugar is heated to the hard crack stage corresponding to a temperature of approximately 300 °F (149 °C). Chikki is the quintessential food people get back from Lonavla after a weekend break. A local hill station about 2 hours from Mumbai. Almond, Peanut, Cashews, Pistachio, name it and thye chikki-fy it!
I’ve loved ‘chikki’ since the last 15 years. She takes care of my kids and me and makes the most awesome rus chawal. Yes, my wife’s pet name also happens to be ‘chikki’. Not coz she is a hard crack head but simply because she had big chubby cheeks as a kid! She is probably going to crack my head with the brittle as soon as she reads this 😊

During one of our nighly chit chat sessions, we randomly mentioned chikki and how much we miss it. As the night passed we diverged from the topic but at the back of our minds we were still thinking of chikki. I got excited, she got excited. Out came the pan and we decided to make chikki! What did you think?

You’ll need:
1 wife who brings up the topic at midnight and you start craving for chikki
1 ½ cups sugar
4-5 strands of saffron
1 tsp ghee
200g Pecan or any kinds of nuts you like roughly chopped

Start by heating up your pan on a high flame. Give the nuts a quick roast on high flame and set them aside. Take off the pan once they start to smoke a bit. That smoky taste is going to blow your mind later. While the pan is hot, add the ghee. Now reduce the flame and add the saffron and mix it around bit such that the saffron starts releasing its aroma, flavour and colour to the ghee. Now add in the sugar and let it begin to melt. You will need to keep mixing it around so that the saffron flavour spread throughout the sugar. Once the sugar has completely melted you’ll notice it starts browning, take it off the flame and mix is around to ensure a nice molten consistency. At this point if there are any sugar lumps just smash them with the spatula and mix it around. They will melt away instantly. Once it reaches a nice dark golden brown add the nuts and mix them thoroughly. Now empty the contents on a flat surface lined with butter paper or you could use a aluminium foil.

Leave it whole and enjoy those crunchy bites. My favourite is to add crush it in a mortar pestle and then sprinkle it over a dark chocolate ice cream!






Comments

  1. Awesome now I'm craving chiki ☺

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautifully written... I am sure it tastes awesome as well.

    ReplyDelete

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