How to Make Kakoorri, Ranzokhey, and Raghwani (Recipe) and plain bread or roti - with pictures

The other day, when I wrote about kakoorri (singular: kakorray), which are traditional fried bread  that Pashtuns are crazy about and that my mom makes me every time I visit her and return home, lots of people asked me to give them the recipe. So my mom was gracious enough to make me some more today for me to take pictures of and to write out the recipe in detail while observing.

In the comments to the post, Pashtuns from Khuram call them Ranzokhey, Pashtuns from Waziristan call them Raghwani; and Pashtuns from Dera Ismail Khan, Swabi, Swat, and Peshawar call them kakorri. Hence the title of this post. Do let me know if it turns out that kakorri aren't the same thing as the ones above, ha!

Please understand, though, that it's really hard to give exact measurements for things (like sugar, salt, yeast, etc.) because it really all depends on your taste and because we don't really use measurements. hah. I just ... "know" ... when something's not enough. That sucks, I know, but, yeah.

But please do feel to ask if something looks confusing or if something just doesn't seem right, or if something's not explained properly.  I know exactly how frustrating it can be when a recipe doesn't explain every step properly and in detail.

P.S. From the post below, you'll not just learn how to make kakorri, but you'll also learn how to make Pakistani bread (roti, naan, dodai)!

khanak!

Ingredients

~ 3 cups of sugar (or per your preference)

lots and lots of flour, enough to fill up this pot to the right

a pot full of oil

a table spoon of Yeast (khambeer/khameera)

1/2 tbsp salt
~ 5 cups of water

Servings: like 15!

Method

1. Boil a huge (or whatever) pot of water in sugar.
[Alternatively, you can use what's called in Pashto gwarra (I believe that's brown sugar? Not sure what it's called in English.) but the recipe changes a lot, then, I think. We used gwarra in Swat when I was a kid, but now we use sugar. Prolly to do with accessibility. But I hear the gwarri ones are soooo much more tastier!]

2. When the sugar melts in the water, let the water cool down completely. Do NOT (and I repeat: DO NOT) add this water to the flour when it's hot! If you do, good luck kneading it.

3. Then get another pot and add flour, yeast, salt to it; then add the water slowly (you don't want to add too much because that's impossible to knead then). It'll look like this:

3a. If you don't know how to knead dough, google up something like "how to knead dough the Pakistani way." You might see something like this. But if you're from Pakistan, where Youtube is still banned (pity!), it's very simple: mix flour in water with salt and yeast; knead until it's all mixed evenly; keep kneading till the dough looks like a perfect round little thing. Roll it up and put it away in a pot to make bread with it later.

NOTE: We knead the dough by hand, as is traditionally done, but a cute little birdie used to tell me when I was doing all the kneading in my house in my sad teenage years that there's a machine for this, too. Haven't looked into it, though. There's also apparently ready-made kneaded dough now! Who woulda thought. I wouldn't use that because the water in your flour needs to be the one you mixed in sugar, not just any plain water. That's where all the taste of the kakoorri comes from.

4. Set the kneaded dough aside in a separate pot or bowl for some 10-15 minutes for the yeast to fully impact the flour. 

5. Meanwhile, heat up lots of oil in a preferably big pot.

5. Now start making the perrrrrey! Perrey are these round balls you make from the kneaded dough in order to make bread--or, in this case, kakoorri--out of.  Here's how:

a)  Get a huge bowl and add flour to it.
b) With your hand smothered in flour (just enough to prevent the dough from sticking to your hands), put your hand in the pot/bowl where you kept the kneaded dough, and pull out about a hand full of the dough. 

c) Make round balls out of them. The smaller they are, the smaller your kakorri (or, otherwise, bread) will be.

The perrey look like this first:

(Image not mine)

Then they look like this:

(perrey)

 

Rolling the perrey (dough balls) image not mine

6. Next, flatten the balls out about 3 at a time (or however many flattened balls will fit in the pot you are heating up the oil in). You can do this with your hands and then just flapping them from one hand to another until they're thin and flat enough, or you can use the rolling thing you see in the picture below.

NOTE: You might also choose to test out the taste the of the kakorray by making sure there's enough sugar in it, that it tastes just as you like it. Add it as needed if it's not perfect for your taste. You can do the water thing or just sprinkle it on the dough ... I don't think the latter is a good idea, though.

7. Put ~3 flattened balls (or however many you can fit) in the pot with the hot oil. 

8. Wait for them to fry out, flipping them every once in a while to make sure both sides are equally fried. 

9. TAAADAAAA! You're DONE!

10. Enjoy for me, too, please :) Let me know they the process goes!

If you're making just plain bread (roti, naan) and not kakorri, here:

1) You wouldn't mix the flour in the sugar water but just plain water.
2) Once you've kneaded the dough in plain water (with the yeast and salt of enough amount to suit your taste, usually about a tablespoon of each for a full pot of flour (pic at the top), let it rest a little bit.
3) Make the balls out of them, then flatten them out, and then put it on the stove in a flat-iron pot; it'll look like this:

4) Last, flip it over once it looks like the bottom side is done.

And that's it!