The Globe Trekking Sindhi Koki
A Koki is a traditional Sindhi breakfast; it is a whole wheat flatbread flavored with onions, cilantro and spices.
They way I look at it – it’s a savory pastry that’s been cooked on the tava (iron pan).
So what makes a good Koki?
- A decent amount of fat in the form of ghee or oil (not olive please; yes I have made the blasphemous error of cooking Indian food in olive oil and I profusely apologize to my fellow foodies for having done that. I now understand that olive oil NOT meant for cooking at high heat)
- Strong upper arm muscles to press down on the Koki to make it brown and crispy
- A mom/mom in law/aunt/any elder person who would like to feed you
My mother-in-law makes the best Kokis in the world. Koki is the standard breakfast on the first Saturday when she visits us. Hot off the stove and in to our plates, the Kokis are just amazing.
The only other time it tastes that great is when one is away from home and someone has lovingly packed a stack of these to munch on in the hotel room.
Why, you ask, when there are fast food restaurants at every airport and lack of availability of food is not really a problem any more.
Well... I think its just genes. We just kinda have it in us now. It's inescapable.
Traveling? Oh well, then we must take kokis.
Back in the day, they were the most practical food item to take along. When people traveled on the road for days, and there were no refrigerators. They supposedly last well for a few days at room temperature, although I always keep mine in the fridge.
While the mode and areas of travel have changed since then, the yearning for a taste of home apparently hasn’t.
So we just kinda do that.
Do we actually need them? That's not the point. We're are Sindhis!
And thus, we make and take kokis with us.
- On planes, trains and automobiles
- to London and to New York, any place we travel
- to our picnics and in our lunch boxes
Alright, alright! I'm exaggerating of course, but seriously the best way to eat a koki?
- With plain yogurt topped with rock salt and pepper
- With muraba / any kind of pickle
- With a pat of butter on one that’s just arrived on your plate hot off the stove
- With a cup of hot Sweet Chai
- Hummus (odd combination, but that’s what you do when you are a Sindhi from Dubai)
- And don't forget the papad!
Alright let’s get kokin'... tee hee , sorry couldn't resist.
By Bharti
Ingredients
- 2 cup of whole wheat atta flour (available in Indian stores)
- ¼ cup or more of ghee/ vegetable oil
- 2 small onions
- 2 thai green chilies
- ¼ cup of cilantro leaves washed and trimmed
- 1 tablespoons anardana (dried pomegranate seeds)
- 1 tablespoon whole coriander seeds lightly crushed (put them in a sandwich bag and use a rolling pin)
- Salt to taste
- ½ teaspoon of ajwain (bishop’s weed)- optional
- Ghee/Oil to fry
Method
Place the onion, cilantro and chilies in a food processor and process till chopped. (It should not be finely minced).
Place the flour and salt in a bowl. Add the ghee and with your fingers, cut it in to the flour (just like a pastry). This is called the ‘mon” in the Sindhi and is what makes the koki crispy.
Add the coriander seeds, pomegranate seeds and the onion mixture and knead lightly to form a dough. Add a little water if you need to. The onion does leave water so it can make the dough soggy if you leave it too long. Let it rest 5 minutes and then bring the dough together.
Heat up a tava to medium heat.
Make a medium size ball and roll it out using oil or extra flour on the surface if necessary.
Make light indentations on the rolled out koki and place on the tava. Cook on each side, flipping every 20 -30 seconds. Spread a teaspoon of oil/ghee on the top side and flip. Press down with metal flipper (what is it really called??) with all the strength you can muster. This will result in a crispy brown crust.
Serve hot with any of the above mentioned suggestions.
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