Home made Papadi for chaats or just to snack

Papadi is another essential ingredient for chaats. These small crispy puris imparts a crunchy texture to any chaat. But in our case, these crispy discs are not just for meant for chaats but as a regular snack as well. More than me, it is S who has become a big fan of this. He just munches away half the papadis while having coffee and the rest when watching TV. He even insisted that I make large quantities of these. So now you know how versatile these little puris are.

The best part about papadis are, they can either be made plain or they can be dressed up with spices and seeds. I have added carom seeds to this recipe. But you can use your imagination and try flavoring the papadis with cumin, dill, chilli powder, or sesame seeds.

I am also sending this to Aparna's second food photography exercise. The theme this time is less is more. So in this exercise, we need to shoot the subject with minimal composition. So that the subject gets all the focus. This seems to be so me. Because I have always loved pictures with minimum props and I like my food always being the hero. That being said, I am still not happy with the photographs taken. I am not sure what went wrong. I will try to submit another set before the deadline.

Specs- Apperture- f/5.6, Shutter speed- 1/13 S, ISO- 200. I have used a reflector on the left hand side

Home made Papadi

Preparation time: 10min+standing time

Cooking time: 20min

Makes- 20 to 25 papdis

Ingredients:

All purpose flour- 1 cup

Fine semolina- 1tbsp

Ajwain or carom seeds- 1 tsp

Salt - 1/4tsp

Oil or clarified butter- 2tsp

Water to knead the dough

Oil to deep fry

Method:

• Combine the flour, semolina,carom seeds, salt and ghee in a bowl and mix well.
• Add water gradually to form a stiff dough. Cover and let the dough stand for 10- 15 min
• Pinch a small marble sized dough. Using a little flour to dust, roll the dough into a thin disc of 1-1/2" in diameter and prick the disc with a fork so that they don't puff up while frying.
• Heat oil in a wok and deep fry the disc in batches of 5 or 6 till golden brown.
• Drain on an absorbent paper and allow the papadis to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

This above photograph goes to the lovely black and white Wednesday event. Which  was started by Susan and incidentally, is also being co-hosted by Aparna.