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!
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!
Awesome now I'm craving chiki ☺
ReplyDeleteBeautifully written... I am sure it tastes awesome as well.
ReplyDelete