Mixture | Assorted Savories in a Chili based garnish | Diwali special

 

It is the month of one of the most important festivals of India - DIWALI (Deepavali, Devali etc.) We Indians celebrate the festival with great pomp and show. New clothes, bonus cheques, sweets and savories that can bring any dieting-guru to their knees! (This day can single-handedly account for the entire pollution of India! Say NO to fire-crackers! Adopt a green Diwali! ☺)

If I have to get into the history of Diwali, then one post wouldn't be enough. There are multiple stories as to why we celebrate  this festival. But like every other festival, this signifies the triumph of good over evil. There are different versions of the story in different parts of India. You can read about it here.

So, that brings us to what's cooking in my kitchen! ☻ In every house, at least 1 sweet & 1 savory is made during this time of the year. Now, being from a typical TamBrahm (a cool name for the Tamil Brahmins) family, I couldn't try out snacks that would make my kollu-paatis & thaathaas (great grandparents) turn in their graves! (uhh.. Okay, I'm pretty sure they were burnt & not buried. :-| Well, You get what I wanna say, right? :-P) (read: Waffles, Muffins, Cookies & anything that doesn't have the typical *u* attached to its name: like murukku, manankombu etc. - only people familiar with the south-Indian languages can get this) Am I getting carried away by the TamBrahm stuff again? I'm sorry! :-D

Well, let's just say that as usual, I bowed down to my Amma's (mother) wish and made (or rather, assisted!) something which we've been making for every Diwali so far : Mixture. It is just the name for a savory in which we make various snacks and then mix them all up & garnish them. I’m finally posting the recipe for which I posted the previous 3 posts (Boondi, Oma Podi & Maida Biscuit) for… There are no hard & fast rules for this one. Just get the snacks you love & mix them up! :-P Well, it is a little more than just mixing.  Read on.

I’m mixing the following goodies to make this yummy mixture:-

§ Boondi

§ Oma Podi

§ Maida Biscuit

§ Fried Cornflakes

§ Fried Rice Flakes

§ Fried Peanuts

§ Fried Curry Leaves

You’ve got to give the mixture a good dry garnish. Otherwise, it just tastes simple. The garnish that we’ve used is straight from my Kumbakonam Kollu Paati’s Kitchen! (My great grandmom’s place ☻) This recipe has been used by very many generations and each time, it is a success. In fact, this time, it came out even better than the store-bought kind! I even heard a lady who came to our house for Golu ask “Where did you buy it from?” :-D So, you can be sure that this recipe can never go wrong! We made every single thing in the recipe from scratch. But if you cant or don’t want to, you can go ahead and just buy them from any Indian store!

What you need – (to make 12 cups)

Boondi – 2 cups (click on the link for the recipe)

Oma Podi – 2 cups (click on the link for the recipe)

Maida Biscuits – 1 cup (click on the link for the recipe)

Cornflakes – 1 cup

Rice Flakes / Thin Poha – 1 cup

Peanuts – 1 cup

Curry leaves – ½ cup

Salt – to taste (2 tablespoons) [[don’t use too much salt as the savories already have salt]]

Red Dried Chilies – 2

Oil – for garnish & deep fry

** You can make/buy all these the previous day**

Method –

1) Make the Boondi.

2) Add into a large vessel / mixing bowl

3) Make the Oma Podi | Sev

4) Add into the mixing bowl. Use your hands to crush the oma podi to get small vermicelli (sprinkle) shaped snack.

5) Make the Maida Biscuit

6) Add into the mixing vessel & mix well.

7) Fry peanuts well for about 1-2 minutes.

8) Add to the mixing bowl & mix well.

9) Fry the cornflakes for about 10 -2-seconds. Make sure you don’t over-fry them.  Remove on a paper.

10) Add to the mixing vessel & give it a good mix.

 11) Fry/Dry Roast the Rice Flakes / Poha. Remove on a paper

 12) Add to the mixing vessel & mix.

 13) Fry curry leaves.

 14) Add to the mixing vessel.

For the Garnish -

1) Heat 2 teaspoons oil & fry the chilis well.

 2) In a blender, grind it to a coarse powder.

3) Add Salt & mix.

Getting it together –

1) Add the garnish to the mixing vessel.

 

2) Mix well

* Since we made large quantities, we had to lay a paper on the ground, put the entire mixture on the floor & mix it thoroughly. But if you are making less, you can directly mix it in the vessel.

 3) Serve!

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