Oat crackers with garlic chives

Its a week before Diwali and the festive spirit is on here in Ahmedabad. People get their house completely spruced up with all the cleaning, painting and re-upholstering ! The Diwali shopping, party planning, buying gifts, buying new clothes, new jewellery and then there's the making of mithai(sweet) and namkeen(savoury) for Diwali. The shops here have every imaginable savoury snack for Diwali, but people here, especially the big joint families always make it at home. They either have a 'maharaj'(cook) come in or the women in the family get together and make a whole lot of it.



Sweets, especially the Indian mithai is really not my forte. I don't like eating it too much and I don't make it too well either, though for my son's sake, I plan to make sitaphal basundi soon.

Here is my slightly hatke savoury snack for Diwali. Healthy, crunchy and not sweet - that's really my kinda stuff. I had tried the garlic chive scones last time around and really liked the mild flavour of garlic.
This time I tried oat crackers with chilli flakes and garlic chives. It turned out crisp and spicy, goes perfect with tea on a cold wintry evening.



Oat crackers with garlic chives

What you need -

1 cup oats (I used quick cooking oats)
3 tbsp wheat flour
3 tbsp APF / maida
3 tbsp cold unsalted butter
6 garlic chives (use garlic powder if you don't find chives)
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 coarsely ground pepper powder
1/2 tsp chilli flakes

What you do with it -

Grind the oats to a really fine powder
Add the wheat flour, APF / maida, baking powder, salt, pepper and stir well
Ensure that the butter is cold. Cut into little pieces and mix with the flour
Mix with your hands, till it is like a coarse crumbly powder
Add the chives and chilli flakes, along with the milk and form the dough
Roll it out to about 1/4" thickness or thinner and use a cookie cutter to cut into rounds
Pre-heat the oven to 170 C. Grease a butter paper and place these crackers on the sheet
Bake for 8 mins and then turn over and bake for another 6-7 mins till slightly browned. This is with my oven setting, may vary in other ovens.
This dough should make about 25-30 crackers