South Indian Mixture Snack

The Tamilnadu mixture is a snack with a mix of assorted snacks like Karaboondi, fried Masala Peanuts, Murukku, and Karasevu, fried Bengal Gram, fired Poha etc. It is a very popular snack prepared during all festival days especially Diwali. It does take time to make this, but the end result would be very satisfying. It can be prepared well in advance and stored in air tight containers for few days. Let us see how to go about.

Let us start with Karaboondi.

Ingredients:

Besan (Chick Pea Flour / Kadalai Mavu ) – 1 cups

Rice Flour – 2 tbsp

Turmeric Powder – 2 pinch

Salt – to suit  taste

Water – as required

Other requirement:

Oil for deep frying

Method:

Sieve the Besan and Rice flour together. Take the sieved flours in a mixing bowl.

Add Salt, Red Chilli Powder, Turmeric Powder, Asafoetida and 2 pinches of Baking Soda.

Mix them with a spoon. Add water little by little and keep mixing till you get a thick batter. It should be little thicker than the Bajji batter.

Heat enough Oil in a pan for deep frying the Kara Boondi. When Oil is very hot, dip the stem of a spoon in the batter and allow the batter to drop in the oil. Let few drops fall into the oil.

If the drops, which fall into the Oil, pop up immediately to the surface of the Oil in good round shape, the temperature and the consistency of the batter is perfect. If the Boondi is flat, the batter is thinner than required. Add 2 to 3 tbsp of Besan and mix well to make it little thicker. If the Boondi comes up with a tail, the batter is little thick. Add little water and make it thinner.

Once you achieve the correct batter consistency, we can start making the Boondis. We need a broad spoon with number of holes in it. We call it Boondi ladle.

Hold the ladle just above the hot oil. Reduce the flame to middle flame. Pour little batter on the ladle. Do not shake or tap the ladle. Let the batter fall thru the holes of the ladle on its own into the Oil. When it stops dropping, move away the ladle. Increase the flame to medium high. Fry the Boondis till it turns golden and the sizzling stops. Remove the Boondis with another slotted spoon, hold the spoon above the Oil so that excess Oil drops back to the pan. Transfer the Boondis to a bowl lined with tissue towel.

Before you start frying the next batch of Boondis, wipe out the bottom of the ladle which you use to drop the batter into the Oil and ensure that the earlier batter is not blocking the holes. Or wash the ladle and dry it before next use. Fry Boondis from the remaining batter in the same way.