Baked Nippat

Nippat is a traditional, crunchy fried tea time snack that is made in different ways by Mangaloreans, and those living in the old Mysore province. We add roasted urad daal flour for better taste and flavour. I had made traditional Nippat some months ago, and it came out pretty good. 

After tasting Maiya's Baked Nippat and Baked Maddur Vada, I had tried making Baked Maddur Vada, but not tried making baked nippat. Today, I was planning to bake some crispy snack and suddenly I thought, why not try my luck with baked nippat. I adapted my fried nippat formula and made some changes to suit the baking process. Then the end result was overwhelmingly fantastic, and the nippats were baked to perfection! They just crumble and melt in the mouth, releasing vivid taste and aroma as you carry the crumbled nippat on your tongue and soak it in your drooling mouth!

Make these for the cold winter days and pamper your kids as well as seniors at home. Very elderly seniors may conveniently forget to wear their dentures and happily gorge on these. The recipe given here yields about 55-60 2 mm thick nippats when stamped with standard 2" cookie cutter. I weighed each nippat and that was around 8 grams each, totalling approximately 450 grams.

Ingredients:
Refined Flour(Maida) - 1 Cup
Rice Flour - 1/2 Cup
Hoorna(Roasted Urad Daal Flour) - 1/4 Cup
Salt - 3/4 Tsp(or to taste)
Castor Sugar - 2 Tsp
Baking Soda - 1/2 Tsp
Red Chilli Powder - 1 Tsp
Roasted Peanuts - 2 Tbsp
Roasted Gram Daal(Hurikadle/Putaani) - 2 Tbsp
Black Sesame Seeds - 2 Tsp
Green Chillies - 3-4 finely Chopped
Curry Leaves - 2 Sprigs finely chopped
Melted Ghee/Butter - 4 Tbsp (60 Ml)
Asafotoeda - A pinch dissolved in 1 Tbsp water or 1/2 Tsp powder
Plain Yogurt or water - About 1/4 Cup

Method:
Lightly pound roasted peanuts in a mortar and blow away the peel.
Lightly pound roasted gram daal.
Mix all the flours, salt, castor sugar, baking soda, chilli powder.
Add the chopped and pounded ingredients.
Mix well and then add melted ghee/butter.
Rub with your fingers to form crumbs, then add asafotoeda, moisten with water or yogurt one tablespoon at a time, knead into a stiff but malleable dough.
Shape into a ball, cover and keep for 15 minutes(in a fridge, if the room temperature is too warm).
Preheat oven at 180° C for 10 minutes.
Take 1/2 portion of the dough, grease the kitchen work area with little ghee, place the dough and roll with the rolling pin into a 2 mm thick sheet.
stamp with a cookie cutter into 20 cookies.
Place the cookies on the baking tray lined with butter paper and prick with a fork to make tiny holes on each one of them.
Bake at 180° C for 12 minutes.
Remove from oven and allow to cool on a rack.
Repeat the process with remaining dough. Last remaining little dough can be rolled into small lemon size balls, flattened with the palm and then placed on the baking tray.
Store in an air tight jar and enjoy them with a cup of hot coffee or tea.

Roasted Urad Daal Flour:
Dry Roast 1/4 cup urad daal on medium heat until the daal turns off white and nice roasted aroma emanates.
Allow to cool and then powder in a mill as finely as possible.