Chakli or Crispy Savoury Spirals

Ingredients:

1. Maida, All purpose flour – 6 cups
2. Split blackgram dal, Udid dal – 1 cup
3. Butter - 2 tsps
4. Sesame seeds – 2-3 Teaspoons
5. Salt to taste 

Instructions:

• Dry roast black gram dal on a medium flame in a broad based bowl till you get a pleasant aroma stirring occasionally.
• Sieve maida in the siever. Tie it in a white thin cloth and steam it in the pressure cooker for exactly 20 minutes. 
• On cooling just press the lumps with your hands powder it and sieve it. Mix roasted black gram dal powder from step 1 to maida and sieve it together around 2-3 times so that it gets mixed up evenly.
• Add salt, butter, sesame seeds and mix well. Slowly add water and bring it to the consistency of chapati dough.
• Insert dough into the chakli mould such that it fits tight in the mould. Set your mould and roll out chakli of required size in circular form on a thick plastic sheet.
• Place a skillet with 4-5 cups of cooking oil in it on a medium flame. When heated fry the above chaklies to light brown on both the sides.
• Store it in airtight containers and will remain afresh for more than a month if fresh cooking oil is used.

Shallow fried Chivda - a healthy iron rich recipe for anemics

Arvind Mallya's Bhajjilo Phov (Fried Poha) using lot of nuts like peanuts, cashew, almonds and pistacho. Yummy!!!

As soon as I saw this picture and read the post in Konkani Coastal Cuisine & Beverages on Face Book, I remembered that every time I tried to do a shallow fried chivda in a microwave I ended up with the phov not being crispy like the deep fried one. After trying two or three times I gave up on microwave method and resorted making chivda only during Diwali festival as we get the bhatti roasted puffed up phov only during Diwali. I used to shallow fry this and keep it aside along with other chivda ingredients heat up a tablespoon oil (for one kg of  phov) and after tempering with mustard seeds, green chillies, asafoetida i used to just mix up all the ingredients and make a healthy chivda for the family.

Geeta Shenoy gave me Deepa Shenoy's a detailed Microwave recipe for Bhajjile Poha

Ingredients:

• Thin Poha (Atukulu) --- 1 cup
  Salt --- 1/2 tsp
  Oil --- 1/2 tblsn
  Mustard Seeds --- 1/2 tsp
  Peanuts --- 1 tblsn
  Dalia --- 3 tblsn
  Curry Leaves --- a few
  Red Chilly --- 2
  Green Chilly --2
  
  Method:
  
  Add a cup of thin poha into a microwave-safe bowl.
  Microwave it for 1 minute.
  Give a good mix and again microwave it for a minute. The poha should by crispy and crunchy. Keep it aside.
  Add half a tsp of salt in a motar and crush it to a fine powder with the help of a pestle. Keep it aside.
  Heat 1 1/2 tsp of oil in a pan. Turn the heat to medium.
  Add 1/2 a tsp of mustard seeds,Curry leaves,Red chilly and let them splutter.
  Add a tblsn of peanuts and fry till done half.
  Add 3 tblsn of dalia, curry leaves and 3/4 th of crushed salt too.
  Roast dalia till done.
  Add a big pinch (half of the 1/4 tsp) to the pan. Stirfry for a while.
  Add microwaved thin poha.
  Stirfry for 2 minutes till the turmeric is well coated to the poha.

    

  Arvind Mallya's Oven Method :

  Heat oil for tempering, after spluttering tempering ingredients then add nuts and the phov after sauteing for 5 to 10 minutes. Spread the still soft in a cookie pan and bake oven at 350F/ 180C degrees for 30 min. Crispy healthy oven roasted chivda ready.
  
  
  Beaten rice flakes or poha is obtained by pounding treated rice with a iron pounder so rich in iron! Traditionally every konkani household used to have a iron wok or kaili alongwith other brass vessels may be they used iron wok to add iron content to the food.