Pappu Chekkalu

Hubby dear loves to have any spicy n crunchy snacks during weekends; he is little health conscious and prefers to keep himself distant from any sort of snacks or junk food involving oil or fat during weekdays; So I use weekends to fill his stomach as much as possible with his favorite food;

I have tried pappu chekkalu (rice crackers) for the first time using my mother’s simple recipe and they came out great; these lovely crackers can be served at tea time, during travel or for entertainment snacks;

Ingredients:

1.    Rice flour – 1 cup

2.    Water – 1 cup

3.    Red chilli powder – 1 tbsp

4.    Cumin Seeds – 1 tbsp

5.    Chana dal – 3 tbsp (Soak in water for 1 hour and drain)

6.    Curry leaves – around 10, cut them into small pieces

7.    Ghee  - 2 tbsp

8.    Salt, to taste

9.    Cooking oil – to deep fry

Method:

1.    In a pan, bring water to boil, add salt, red chilli powder and rice flour; Combine well to not have any lumps; place lid and leave it aside to cool;

2.    Once cool, add cumin seeds, chana dal, curry leaves and ghee to the mixture and combine well; Adjust salt if necessary;

3.    Place kadai on stove, add oil for deep frying;Let it heat, meanwhile divide your mixture into small balls (amla sized); Use plastic bag (zip lock or milk cover etc) or poori press to shape these balls into circles;

4.    Use toothpick or fork or knife to make very small holes or dents all over the chekkalu so that these don’t puff up during frying;

5.    Once the oil is hot, add chekkalu to the oil and fry them until they turn golden brown;

6.    Transfer fried chekkalu onto a absorbent paper or cloth;

7.    Repeat the same process for rest of the dough

Notes:

1.    You can replace chilli powder with green chilli paste;

2.    Do not forget to fry chekkalu on medium flame

3.    You can also add peanuts along with chanda dal (my athayya uses peanuts along with chanal dal) 

4.  Based on size of kadai and amount of oil, you can deep fry chekkalu in batches of 4 to 6; Mine is a small kadai so did 4 chekkalu at once;