Sweet Seedai and Vellai Seedai

Sweet Seedai and Vellai Seedai are traditional snacks made during the Krishna Jayanti Festival. They taste great and are liked by everyone – children, adults and seniors. The taste is so tempting that seniors who have lost the teeth or cannot bite a little hard snack would love to grind the Seedai to a powder and eat the powder. Traditionally one has to follow a lengthy process of preparing the Rice Flour by soaking rice, grinding, roasting the flour etc. I have here used a readily available Rice Flour from the stores rather than going thru the lengthy process of preparing the Rice Flour. The end result is same and so, this method can be adopted always for making the tasty Seedai.

Ingredients:

Rice Flour – 1 cups + 2 cups

Roasted Urad Dal Flour – 2 tbsp + ½ cup (see note at the end for preparing the flour)

Grated Jaggery – ½ cup

Sesame Seeds – 1 tsp + 2 tsp

Cardamom (Elaichi) Powder – ½ tsp + ½ tsp

Salt – a pinch + a pinch

Grated Coconut – 2 tbsp + 4 tbsp

Asafoetida – ¼ tsp

Ghee

Method:

Heat a pan. Add the 3 cups of Rice Flour and dry roast it in low medium flame till the flour becomes non sticky and free flowing. To test the consistency, draw a line with the roasted flour like one draws a line in rangoli. One should be able to draw the line easily and uniformly without any sticky feeling.  Switch off the flame at this stage and allow the flour to cool. Keep stirring the flour once a while it cools so that the vessel’s heat does not burn the flour. Else you can transfer the flour to another broad vessel and allow it to cool. This step is not required if you are using flour bought from the stores.

Take the Jaggery in a bowl and add water to soak it (I added ¼ cup of water). Heat it and allow it to come to a rolling boil. Strain the whole liquid thru a strainer so that all impurities like dust, sand, fibers etc are filtered out. If the Jaggery is a superior quality one and you are assured of no impurities in it, one can skip this step.

Boil the filtered liquid once again till it thickens a little.

Take 1 cups of roasted Rice Flour in a mixing bowl. Add 2 tbsp of roasted Urad Dal Flour, 1 tsp of Sesame Seeds, ½ tsp of Cardamom powder and a pinch of Salt. Add the grated 2 tbsp of grated Coconut.

Pour the Jaggery syrup which we made little by little and mix well to make a dough. The quantity of the Sugar syrup to be added should be such a way that the dough does not become sticky. If the quantity of syrup made is not sufficient to make the dough, one can add a little water also. Once smooth dough is made, allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes.

In the meanwhile, one can start preparing for the Vellai Seedai. Take 2 cups of roasted Rice Flour and ½ cup of roasted Urad Dal Flour. Add 2 tsp of Sesame Seeds, ¼ tsp of Asafoetida, 4 tbsp of grated Coconut, a pinch of Salt and Ghee. Make a pliable dough adding required water little by little.

Take a small pinch of the dough and make it into a ball or a round. (Do not try to make a smooth perfect ball or round). Do not try to give pressure while making the ball or round. Use the full dough to make such small balls/rounds. Make the balls/rounds from both the sweet dough as well as the dough for Vellai Seedai. Keep them separate.

Heat enough Oil in a pan for deep frying the Seedai. Fry the balls in small batches. Do not add too many balls to the Oil and overcrowd them. Fry them crispy. When you drop the balls into the Oil, the Oil may splash and so, keep a safe distance from the Oil. The balls will start frying with sizzling sound. Fry in medium flame only. Stir the Seedai in between while frying. Once the sizzling sound ceases, it is an indication that one can remove the Seedai from the Oil. Remove them with a perforated sieve, drain the Oil and transfer the Seedai to a paper towel or napkin so that excess Oil is sucked away by the paper towel. Fry the remaining Seedai in the same way. (Fry the sweet Seedai and Vellai Seedai separately and store them also separately.)

Allow the Seedai to cool and store them in air tight jar.

Note:

1. Dry roast Urad Dal in medium flame stirring continuously till the Urad Dal turns golden in color. Once it cools, grind it to a fine flour. Sieve the flour and store in air tight container for use whenever required for various snacks including this Seedai.

• How to reduce the Seedai bursting:
• Sieve the flours properly and use. This step is important.
• Do not roll the Seedai with pressure and do not tend to make perfect balls or round shape.

• It takes more time to fry Seedai compared to Murukku or Chakli. Fry till the bubbles in the Oil and the sizzling sound ceases.
• Fry in medium flame only. Do not fry in high flame. If fried in high flame, the Seedai will not be crispy – it will be crispy on the outer side and soft inside.
• Be generous in using Asafoetida and grated Coconut. They will make the Seedai more flavourful.