Crunchy Rice Crackers/Thattai

Thattai is a crispy evening tea time snack made with Rice and Urad Dal flours. This snack is a must for having snack during festival time like Deepavali and Gokulashtami etc.  I made some subtle changes in its preparation which vary from the traditional method. In the traditional way, Rice is soaked in water and then ground after the water is drained and then roasted and used. The proportion of Urad Dal is different in the traditional preparation. But I used a readily available Rice Flour from the stores. The Thattai does turn out good – crispy and tasty. Try it.

Ingredients:

Rice Flour – 1 cup (bought ready from stores)

Roasted Urad Dal Flour – 2 tbsp

Channa Dal – 1 tbsp (soaked in water for an hour)

Asafoetida – ¼ tsp

Chilli Powder – ½ tsp (adjust as per one’s liking)

Black or White Sesame Seeds – 1 tsp

Curry Leaves – from 2 twigs (chopped)

Salt – to suit one’s taste

Melted Butter or Ghee – 2 tbsp

Oil – for deep frying

Method:

Wash and soak the Channa Dal for an hour. Drain the water.

Dry roast the Urad Dal till it changes its color to until golden brown. After it cools down, blend it to a fine powder and sieve it.

Dry roast the Rice flour in low flame till it becomes light; when you start roasting, the flour will feel little heavy, but it will become light as you keep roasting. But, do not allow the color to change.

You can check by drawing one or two lines with the powder like you draw lines for rangoli.  The flour should fall freely from your fingers.

Transfer the Rice flour to another vessel. Once it cools down, sieve it to get only the fine powder.

Take the Rice Flour in a mixing bowl. Add Urad Dal Flour, soaked Channa Dal, Asafoetida, Black (or white) Sesame seeds, chopped curry leaves, Chilli Powder and Salt.  Mix them very well. You can adjust Salt and Chilli Powder at this stage. Add Ghee or Butter, mix them well so that the butter mixes with the powder completely.

Add water little by little and mix well to make thick dough. The dough must be smooth, stiff and non-sticky. 

Take a plastic sheet and spread Oil on it. Make small balls from the dough and arrange on the lower half side of the plastic sheet. Fold and cover with the top half side of the sheet. Press each ball gently with the bottom of a flat round vessel to make a moderately thin Thattais.  Transfer them to a plate lined with another greased plastic sheet. The greasing helps in removing the Thattai easily for dropping in the oil while frying.

Heat the Oil in a heavy bottomed broad pan. Once the Oil becomes very hot, drop the Thattais into the oil gently without flashing the Oil. You can drop 4 to 6 Thattais every time depending on the size of the pan.

Fry them evenly in medium flame by turning the sides of the Thattai once a while so that both the sides of the Thattai are fried golden yellow or deep brown. You will find that the bubbling of Oil will slowly subside and that is an indication that the Thattais are fried properly. Transfer them to paper towel so that excess oil is absorbed away from the Thattai.

Once the Thattai cool down, store them in an air tight jar.

Note:

1. When you are dropping the Thattai into the Oil for frying, the Oil should be very hot. But, reduce the flame to medium while frying. Increase the flame to make the Oil hot for frying the next batch of Thattai.

• Add water carefully while making the dough. If you add more water than required, the Thattai will consume more Oil while frying and it will remain oily.

• If you add less water than required and make the dough more dry,  the dough will remain hard and the Thattai will start cracking while making it flat from the small balls.