Boondi paakam is a delicious evening time snack-dessert usually made on special occasions like religious ceremonies and festivals in Andhra Pradesh. This is one of the desserts I would die for! It takes about 30 minutes to prepare. These crispy sweet nuggets are made with Besan (chickpea flour), rice flour and jaggery. Jaggery is a type of brown sugar popular in India. My mom always preferred jaggery to sugar because it is unrefined sugar (molasses are not separated) that is high in simple carbohydrates. Jaggery is made by boiling sugar cane and palm sap. In taste, it can be compared to brown/raw sugar. Jaggery brings a distinct flavor and taste to the food.
Ingredients:
Besan (chickpea flour) 1 cup
Rice flour ¼ cup
Jaggery (grated) 1 ½ cups
Water 2 cups
Cardamom powder (optional) 1 tsp
Oil (for deep fry) 4 cups
Ghee (clarified butter) / Butter 1 tsp
Method:
1 In a bowl, mix besan, rice flour with water. The batter should be of dosa or sauce-like consistency.
2. Heat oil in a wide bottomed vessel on medium flame. Take a stainless steel skimmer (perforated) and place it above the oil vessel. Using a spoon, pour the batter onto the skimmer. The batter should fall into the oil as tiny droplets. Continuously stir spoon and the skimmer so that batter droplets spread evenly. Fry droplets (Boondi) until golden color.
3 Place a kitchen paper towel on a plate and pour Boondi into it so that paper can soak excess oil.
4 Boil grated jaggery with water until the liquid thickens. To check if the syrup is ready, drop a drop of syrup into a cup of water. If the syrup turns into soft ball in the water, syrup is ready.
5 Add syrup to the Boondi and mix well. Pour Boondi on a butter/ghee-greased plate and leave it aside for at least half an hour.
6 Break the crispy nuggets into pieces and serve with tea.
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