Pappu Chekkalu...grandma's recipe

My grandmother is from a place called diviseema in Krishna Dt. As far as I know people of the coastal Andhra are great food lovers and we are no exception to this. Granny used to make loads and loads of sweets and savoury snacks for us when we visited her during our summer holidays. Not only during the holidays, whenever a person from her village comes to our hometown Nellore, she sends two jute bags fully filled with these food items. Now even at the age of 80years, she tries to cook many of these items and send to her children n grandchildren. God knows where all the energy comes from...

I can never ever compete with her cooking skills, but I often try this recipe of pappu chekkalu at home. Surprisingly, they usually come out very well. This is the only recipe out of her list that I can make well. I do not make them in large scale. Just 10 or 20 is the max count.

Ingredients:

Rice Flour - 2 cups

Besan (split peas flour) - 1 table spoon

Chana dal - 1 table spoon (Soak in hot water for 10min and drain)

Onion - 1 small (cut into tiny pieces)

Green chillies - 5 (chopped)

Cumin seeds - 2 tea spoons

Ghee - 2 table spoons

Salt

Oil (for deep frying)

Method:

Except the oil (for deep frying) mix all the above ingredients and make a dough. Cover the dough with a wet kitchen towel and set aside for 30min. Take a plastic sheet rub oil into the hands. Make lemon sized balls out of the dough and flatten with the fingers as shown in the picture. Heat Oil in a deep frying pan. When the oil is piping hot fry these flattened pieces in batches until crisp/gold brown. After frying them place on a tissue paper to absorb the oil. These can be stored in an air tight container for 3-4 days.

Ghee, oil, deep fry..these words are alarming, but less alarming when compared to the junike fries and fast food ;).