The blogosphere is full of festive recipes. I love savories over sweets. South- Indian savory list is endless. Some are very spicy and some are very subtle, yet tasty. One such less spicy savory that are kid-friendly and elderly-friendly is – Omapodi. Omapodi is made with gram flour and rice flour with the star ingredient – Omam or Ajwain seeds. My grandfather is a great fan of this Omapodi. Whenever I make this, I have thought about him. The thin and soft Omapodi just melts in your mouth.
Omapodi is one savory recipe that adds up to a volumize mixture. It is also the closest cousin of North-Indian Sev – a vital ingredient in chat. Do try this Omapodi for this festive season and enjoy it. Get geared up for some more Diwali recipes that will be following up.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Measure One cup of gram flour and half a cup of rice flour in a wide bowl. Mix them together and add salt to it. Set this aside.
- Heat a pan and dry roast the ajwain/ omam for half a minute. Switch off the stove and roast in the remaining heat. Take care not to burn them.
- Transfer to a small mixer jar. Add a tsp of water and grind them. Pass this through a strainer. Repeat the process two more times and extract the juice from the ajwain seeds.
- Melt one spoon of butter and add to the flour mixture. Heat oil in a wide Kadai. Add a tbsp of hot oil to the flour.
- Slowly add the ajwain water to the flour mixture and knead to a loose dough. Check the temperature of the oil. The oil should be hot and not fuming hot.
- Use the idiyappam mold in the murukku press and squeeze the dough to the oil directly in a circular motion. The oil will come up at first and soon will be fine.
- Cook for about 30 secs and flip over the other side to get it done. Use two paddles and gently transfer to a paper towel for the oil to drain.
- Bring it to room temperature and store in an airtight box.
Notes
- The consistency of the dough is very important. A very tight dough will become very hard to squeeze. So if your omapodi is tight, sprinkle few drops of water and bring to a loose consistency.
- I usually want to have only the ajwain seed flavor. You can also add red chili powder if you wish to.
- The reason to strain ajwain seeds is to avoid any spluttering in oil when ajwain seeds are added as a whole.
- Add a small quantity of butter only. Too much butter can make the omapodi dissolve in oil soon after they are squeezed.