South Indian Mixture

Snacks is such an integral part of our life, ain't it? Varieties galore and each place in India comes with its own specialty dish.

This diwali was my maiden attempts at making these snacks. I began with making South Indian Mixture, Muruku, Boondi, and Jilebi.

 

With my test buddies keen to be tested, I began my attempts with Mixture first. As the name indicates, this is a snack which is an apt mix of different individual snack items.

Ingredients:

1. Kaara Boondi - made separately                              -  1-1.5 cups
2. Crushed Omapodi / muruku - made separately        - 1-2 cups (broken)
3. Peanuts                                                                      - 1/4 cup
4. Fried Gram Dhal                                                       - 1/4 cup
5. Rice Flakes / Poha                                                    - 1/4 cup
6. Cashew Nuts                                                             - 10
7. Dried Grapes                                                             - 10
8. Curry Leaves                                                             - handful
9. Red Chilli Powder                                                    - 1 tspn
10. Salt                                                                            - to taste (I added 1/4-1/2 tspn only)
11. Hing                                                                           - 1/4 tspn 
12. Oil                                                                              - To fry
13. Ghee                                                                           - 1 tbspn (for flavor, optional)

Method:

1. Make Kara Boondi and Oma podi / Muruku separately. Recipes for those are shared as separate posts.
2. In a deep pan, add oil to deep-fry ingredients. As it heats up, begin with frying peanuts, fried gram dhal and rice flakes separately. Fry them till they become golden brown (peanuts will crack). Ensure none of it are over-fried / burned
3. Following these three, fry cashwe and dried grapes
4. Finally, add the curry leaves 
5. In a large vessel, add salt, chilli powder, and hing. To this, add all other fried ingredients
6. Close with a lid and mix them by tossing
7. Allow it to cool and store it in an air-tight container

Note

1. Ensure salt is very minimal as each ingredient like muruku and boondi also are salted
2. In addition to the above-mentioned ingredients, you can choose to add any other snacks such as maida/wheat biscuits, kara sev, thattai, fried channa dal etc