Friday, August 14, 2009

Deep Fried Snacks....Vella Cheedai, Uppu Cheedai



Yesterday August 13th was Gokulashtami...Lord Krishna's Birthday.....
So I attempted to make some of the Savories that are usually made, Vella Cheedai, Uppu Cheedai and thenkuzhal.
I took these recipes from Aparna, who is an expert making the Cheedais. The Uppu Cheedai
All of them use more or less the same ingredients.

Vella Cheedai
Vella Cheedai is the sweet version of the Cheedai as the name suggests, Vellam means Jaggery I a raw form of sugar)
You Need
Rice Flour 1 cup
Urad Flour - 2 teaspoons
Jaggery 1 cups
Sesame seeds- 1 teaspoons
Cardamom - 5 or 6 peeled and powdered
Coconut (cut like small teeth) - 3 tablespoons OPTIONAL
Method
---> In a heavy bottomed pan, add the jaggery and about 2 tablespoons water. Keep the fire at low flame.
--->In 10 minutes the jaggery would have melted and become completely liquid.
--->At this point, switch off the stove and add the cardamom powder, coconuts, sesme seeds, the rice and urad flour.
--->Mix well to make a batter
---> Make round balls and deep fry till it becomes dark brown but take it out before it becomes black.
---> When Deep frying, as always keep the fire on a low to medium flame, otherwise the outside will cook fast and become black but the inside will remain uncooked.

Uppu Cheedai
Uppu Cheedai is known to create catastrophies in the kitchen. Heard a lot of stories, that if you don't make the dough right, the moment when you out the small balls in the oil, it will start bursting. Because of this, I have never attempted this in the past. Armed with Aparna's recipe I was determined to overcome my fears :) )
It turned out great, the only disappointment was I made tooooooooo little :(
You Need
Rice Flour 1 cup
Urad Flour - 2 teaspoons
Salt - As needed (i added 3/4ths teaspoon to a teaspoon)
Sesame seeds- 1 teaspoons
Butter (Melted ) - 1/4 stick
Water - as needed to make a thick dough
Method
--->Mix well to make a batter
---> Make small (smaller than the Vella Cheedai) round balls and deep fry till it becomes dark brown but take it out before it becomes black.
---> When Deep frying, as always keep the fire on a low to medium flame, otherwise the outside will cook fast and become black but the inside will remain uncooked.
---> when it turns an even golden brown, take them out.

Both of them tasted really good. I also made Thenkuzhal. I will post the recipe for that tomorrow.


5 comments:

Rama said...

Hi Vandana, I just tried the uppu cheedai (I think these are what we call paalakailu, but need to check with my mon). They taste nice but I had a problem, the started to sort of disintegrate, and most of the sesame floated away!! The final product did not look as smooth and round like the ones you made. What did I do wrong?/ :(

Vandana said...

Hi Rama,
I think you added more butter or more urad flour.
Try again and let me know.
Remember the dough has to be really think and harden if left open for more than10 minutes (to keep moist you have to wrap in wet cloth)

Mrs.Narayanan said...

Hi,
Did you use dry rice flour bought from the store or used the rice flour made at home by washing the raw rice, drying it on the news paper or cloth and then grinding it in the mixie; and finally dry roasting the flour in the pan.

Vandana said...

I used the dry rice flour that we get here in Indian stores. Nirav brand usually works well.

Vandana said...

Laxmi Brand also works very well.