After Madhya Pradesh, we move on to Maharashtra, situated in the western part of India. Maharashtra shares its boundaries with Gujarath, Dadra and Nagarhaveli, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Goa. It also has the Arabian sea in the west. When I was in college, we went on a 15 days trip to North India and the first stop was Mumbai. At that time I was not so keen on food available there, but still I remember eating pav bhaji at the beach. For the past three years I have been visiting Shirdi on road trip and so we travel so many days in Maharashtra. The most famous street food available there is the vada pav. I have already made vada pav with all the chutneys and spreads but what I saw during my visits was a simple version of Vada Pav. Potato bonda is placed inside the slit pav and is served with fried green chillies. I never miss it. Every time I go there I eat it daily. Last time, when we were returning from Shirdi, we started early and so didn't have breakfast at Shirdi. When breakfast time came, we were crossing so many villages and dhabas and I was searching for some dhaba to be opent. One dhaba was open and we were the first customers. When I asked about the dishes available, he told me that misal pav and usal pav. But I know them as chaat items and having them for breakfast seemed ridiculous. But still we were hungry and ordered misal for both of us. It tasted amazing but still I couldn't accept it for breakfast. When BM was announced, I wanted to try out Misal but somehow I kept postponing it. And finally to make things easier, I made chiwda instead. Chiwda is nothing but what we call as aval mixture in Tamil Nadu. The addition of raisins and cashew makes it so interesting and extra rich. I made this for our evening snack one evening and served it along with a cup of coffee. It was over within a day. All of us loved this simple snack. Use a steel sieve to deep fry all the ingredients. This will make it very easy to remove the fried ingredients from hot oil.
Ingredients:
Poha/ Rice Flakes/ Aval-1 cup
Peanuts-1/2 cup
Roasted Gram/ Pori Kadalai-1/2 cup
Cashew Nuts-1/2 cup
Golden Raisins-2 tbs
Curry Leaves-2 sprigs
Oil-1 tsp
Mustard Seeds-1/4 tsp
Cumin Seeds-1/2 tsp
White Sesame Seeds-1 tsp
Red Chilly Powder-1/4 tsp
Turmeric Powder-1/4 tsp
Asafoetida-a pinch
Salt-to taste
Sugar-1 tsp
Oil-For Deep Frying
Procedure:
1. Heat oil in a deep kadai.
2. Place the rice flakes in a metal sieve and immerse it into oil.
3. Let the flakes fry until slightly golden.
4. Remove the sieve from oil and drain oil.
5. Transfer to a plate.
6. Fry cashews, peanuts, roasted gram, raisins and curry leaves separately and add it to the rice flakes.
7. Heat a pan and add oil for tempering.
8. Add mustard seeds, cumin, asafoetida, sesame seeds, red chilly powder and turmeric powder.
9. Saute for a minute on low flame.
10. Add the deep fried stuff into the pan and mix well so that the tempering is equally distributed.
11. Add slat and sugar and mix well.
12. Remove from flame and allow it to cool completely.
13. Store in airtight jar.
Labels: Blogging Marathon, MAHARASHTRIAN, SAVORY, SNACKS
