Churma

Baked bread crushed back into ghee and sugar.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (ghee).

Ingredients

• 400 g coarse wheat flour
• 80 g ghee, for the dough
• about 140 ml water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 150 g jaggery, grated, or caster sugar
• 120 g ghee, melted
• 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 40 g almonds, chopped

Method

1. BAKED BREAD IS CRUSHED BACK INTO GHEE AND SUGAR. Its article gives both the short description and the method: churma IS COARSELY GROUND WHEAT, CRUSHED AND COOKED WITH GHEE AND SUGAR, and IN HARYANA, CHURMA IS MADE BY MASHING UP ROTI IN GHEE AND JAGGERY. So this is a sweet made out of bread that has already been baked once, which is why it belongs beside bati rather than among the syrup sweets.
2. AND THAT IS WHY IT COMPLETES A TRIO. Bati and dal bati are each on their own page here, and the meal they make with this is the one Rajasthan is known for. The cleanest way to make churma is to bake the same dough as a bati and then destroy it.
3. MAKE A STIFF DOUGH AND BAKE IT HARD. Flour, ghee rubbed in, salt, and as little water as it takes. Six balls, baked at 200C for forty minutes until they are brown and crack open.
4. LET THEM GO COMPLETELY COLD BEFORE BREAKING THEM. Warm bread smears instead of crumbling.
5. CRUSH THEM COARSE, THEN GRIND SOME OF IT FINER. A mortar or a quick pulse in a processor. The article's word is coarsely, and a churma that is all powder is dull in the mouth -- you want grit in it.
6. WARM THE JAGGERY IN A LITTLE OF THE GHEE UNTIL IT MELTS, THEN STIR IN THE CRUMB. Off the heat. It should look like damp sand and hold a shape when squeezed.
7. THE REST OF THE GHEE GOES IN BY DEGREES. A hundred and twenty grams for four hundred of flour is a lot and it is what the dish is. Stop when no more is taken up.
8. CARDAMOM AND ALMONDS THROUGH, AND SERVE IT WARM. Its article notes churma is sometimes served WITHOUT GHEE, ESPECIALLY AS A DIET FOR THE WRESTLERS SPARRING IN THE DANGAL OF AKHARAS, and otherwise with warm milk, lassi or sour kadhi -- and in Rajasthan with kadhi and dal, topped with more ghee.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under India · All recipes