Nippattu

Ram, Aruna, and Abhay live next to us and we have benefited from their Indian cooking. Somehow eating Indian food at a restaurant pales in comparison to the real thing cooked by someone who thoroughly knows what they are doing. These “fried cookies” are extremely tasty.

ingredients

4 cups rice flour, well sieved
1 1/4 cup roasted peanuts with no skins (or less and use 1 1/2 Tbsp Roasted Urad Powder)
3/4 cup grated dry coconut
1/2 cup hot vegetable oil
2 tsp salt
2 tsp red chili powder (or less and add finely chopped green chilies)
1/4 tsp Asafoetida powder
1 Tbsp chopped curry leaves
1 Tbsp chopped coriander leaves
2 tsp sesame seeds
Deep fry oil
1 cup roasted Gram

directions

1
Crush peanuts coarsely with a rolling pin. Powder the chutney dhal until of a coarse consistency.
2
Dry the grated coconut in a warm oven, then powder it in a mixer.
3
Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add the hot oil and work it into the ingredients. Cover and keep in the refrigerator overnight.
4
Divide into about 4 parts to work with for convenience. Sprinkle with water to prepare a thick dough. Make lemon sized balls from the dough. Pat on top of a greased polyurethane sheet to form small pancakes.
5
Heat oil in a broad deep frying pan. Deep fry in the oil until dark brown and crispy.
6
Drain, remove excess oil, and cool to room temperature.