Omapodi or Sev

Omapodi / Sev

A delicious deep fried snack in Indian cuisine, made of gram flour, spices and oil. This is a basic recipe of sev and also suitable for the preparation of Kerala mixture / Aval mixture / North Indian chaat preparation …

Makes: 175 g – 220 g

Ingredients

1 cup / 200 ml (Indian standard measuring cup of 200 ml / 8 oz capacity) Besan (gram flour / kadala maav / chone pitti)

½ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon hot oil

2 pinches turmeric powder

1 teaspoon omam (ajwain)

¼ cup (50 ml / 3 tablespoon water) water for ajawain / omam

Extra 5 tablespoon water (to knead the gram flour)

Extra 1 teaspoon oil

300 ml oil to fry

Method

Sieve gram flour.

Soak ajwain in ¼ cup water for one hour and strain water. Reserve water.

In a wide bowl, mix sieved gram flour with hot oil, turmeric powder and reserved ajwain water. Mix well until all the ingredients well combined.

Add extra 3 – 5 tablespoons of water and make a soft dough. Dough will stick while kneading. It’s a very soft and stick dough (not like chapatti dough). Apply little oil and make a perfect dough.

Put this dough in a murukku / chakali mould. Use sev plate / idiyappam achu / string hoppers achu (with lots of small holes) to make omapodi / sev.

Heat oil in a wide kadai / frying pan and reduce heat to medium. Fry directly in hot oil (give circular rotations with chakali machine) on a medium heat until light golden color and crisp in 4 batches (depending upon the size of the kadai / frying pan, maintain medium heat. Otherwise it will turn into brown color immediately). Drain and place on kitchen towel to absorb extra oil. Break into small pieces and store in an airtight container.