Nippattu/Ellada

Ellada...a spicy snack that makes my wish-list whenever I visit my parents. I always had the pleasure of eating nippattu ...but never made it myself...as it needs lots of patience and time. Now being a full-time mom, wanted to stack up the snack boxes for my kids. All I was targeting was the taste...and happy to get it in my first trial...but crispness needs bit more improvement.....better luck next time :-).

Ingredients:   

• 1 cup parboiled rice
• 2 tbsp parboiled rice (for powder)
• 2 tbsp urad daal 
• 2 tbsp chana daal 
• 2 or 3 red chillies
• 1 tbsp whole dhaniya seeds
• 2 tbsp peanuts
• 2 tbsp sesame seeds
• Hing (asafoetida)
• Salt
• Oil

Preparation:    

Soak parboiled rice for 4 to 5 hours and prepare batter.

Roast urad daal, 2 tbsp parboiled rice and dry chillies in a kadai and make powder.

Soak chana daal for 15 minutes and drain the water. Crush dhaniya seeds and peanuts into half (or whatever shape you can)....but don't crush them too much.
Tip: If you want to remove peanut skin: roast them slightly, remove skin with hand and then crush them.

To the parboiled rice batter, add <urad daal, dry chillies, parboiled rice> powder, sesame seeds, chana daal, crushed dhaniya seeds, crushed peanuts, salt, hing and 2 tbsp oil.

Mix all the ingredients thoroughly.

Take lemon sized dough and make nippattu shapes. I made the shapes on a piece of cloth by pressing the dough with wet hand. To get crisp nippattu, you can add more oil to the dough and press them using rolling pan on an aluminium sheet.

Heat oil in a Kadai and deep fry the nippattu until golden brown.

While I was busy with rest of the preparation, three nippattus silently made their way into my tummy. Combined taste of crunchy peanuts, chanal daal, sesame seeds and dhaniya seeds is hard to resist :-).