Seedai

Since I was always fond of cooking and trying out new recipes one of my friends had forwarded me a collection of recipes many years back. Since then I have received this same collection from two other friends, so I think this file must be quite widely circulated. Every once in a way I use some recipe from this file. Since sometime I have been wanting to try out a recipe for Seedai from this collection. First I was not aware of this recipe and so I just casually goggled it and found it is quite a famous savoury from Tamil Nadu. Then I remembered seeing it in shops in Matunga, Mumbai and of course here in Bangalore.

I generally try to avoid making deep fried dishes due to the high calories, but today we were having some friends over for tea so I thought I could afford to serve some deep fried goodies. These crisp savoury balls were quite liked. Here is the recipe...

Ingredients

¼ kg of rice flour,

2 tsp urad dal flour,

½ cup coarsely ground fresh coconut,

2 tsp sesame seeds,

 ½ tsp red chilli powder,

Salt to taste,

1 tsp ghee,

A pinch of asafoetida,

Oil for deep frying

Method

Urad dal flour is generally not something I have at home, so I just dry roasted urad dal and ground it into a fine powder.

Mix all the ingredients except the oil and make it into a tough dough using water. Next take about a 1 tsp of the dough and roll into a smooth ball using your palms. This is a time consuming task. Do not be tempted to make bigger balls or your seedai will not come out crisp.

Heat oil on a low flame till it is hot. Add 1/3^rd of the balls and let fry on a gentle flame till it is golden brown and crisp. Drain. Fry the remaining balls in two batches.

Let them cool completely before storing in air tight containers.

My seedai have small air pockets on the surface this is not something I have seen in the other photographs I have viewed on the net, but thankfully this did not impact the taste not the texture, so I think I can let them be.  

Oops I just referred to the recipe and I see the rice flour had to be roasted, I forgot about that! Maybe next time and it would come out even more crisper.