Chakli is one snack I love eating as much as I love making them. This savory snack makes a perfect accompaniment with evening coffee or chai. Last Sunday, I made these Avocado Peas Chaklis as I wanted to use avocados in some Indian dish. I had planned to make either a dosa, paratha or puri with avocados. However, before I could cook any of these dishes, I saw them posted by my other blogger friends. Few days back, I had come across a chakli recipe where boiled potato was used in place of butter/ ghee. So I thought why not add avocados in place of butter? That's how the plan of making these Avocado Peas Chaklis conceived. I added green peas just to give it some color.
These chaklis came out very crispy and crunchy. This is the first time I have made these without adding any ghee/ butter to the dough. The dough was a nice light green color, however, the chaklis turned out slightly golden brown when they were deep fried. So I would say that was the only disappointment. I was expecting the fried chaklis to be light green or creamish in color (like the store bought butter chaklis). Anyways, this was a successful experiment and I'm happy with the result. Will be surely making these very often.
Makes 16-17 chaklis
Ingredients -
1 cup wheat flour
1/2 cup peas
1 avocado
2-3 green chillies
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp carom seeds/ ajwain
1 tbsp black/ white sesame seeds
Salt to taste
Oil for deep frying
Method -
1. Take the wheat flour in a muslin cloth and tie a knot. Steam this flour bundle in the pressure cooker without putting the weight for 10 mins. You can also steam it outside over boiling water for 10mins.
2. In the meantime, scoop out the avocados and grind them along with the peas and green chillies into a very fine green paste. Add few drops of water only if needed.
3. Cool the flour bundle and make sure you break any lumps. Add ajwain, cumin seeds, sesame seeds, salt and mix well.
4. Add the green paste (@ 6 tbsps) and knead together to form a soft dough (like chapati dough). Add more green paste if needed. (I ended up using all of it, but quantity may vary based on the size of the avacados and the amount of water added while grinding).
5. Take a small portion of the dough and form a cylindrical shaped log and drop it in the chakli/ murukku press.
6. Heat oil in a deep frying pan/ kadhai.
7. Using your hands, press the chakli mold to form concentric circles on a plate. Also check out other convenient way of forming chaklis here.
8. Gently lift the chaklis and deep fry in hot oil on medium flame. Fry few chaklis at a time making sure you do not overcrowd the kadhai. Fry both sides till they turn golden and take them out on a clean paper towel or old newspaper to drain the excess oil.
9. Allow them to cool and store them in an airtight container.
Note –
* Make the chaklis immediately after making the dough to avoid the chaklis from absorbing too much oil.
* If making a big batch, work on small amounts of dough at a time.
I'm sending these Avocado Peas Chaklis to Priya Mitharwal's 'Vegetable/Fruit A Month' event with Avocado being the chosen fruit for the month of May 2010.
Posts
