CURRY AND SPICE: DAL SNACKS

YIN & YANG RUN PARALLEL IN MY LIFE; SIMILARLY THE CRAVING FOR FRIES, FRITTERS AND THE SIDE EFFECTS OF HAVING THEM!

Did anyone ever question why Yin is considered negative & feminine together? I too do not question myself why I require to have fries & fritters regular at age 51, with an overweight body type! I know if I am to have an hourglass figure and superbly healthy self, I have to follow a specific diet pattern which is impossible for me! I dislike science, mathematics; to study, learn, play, exercise! I grew up with food in one hand & story books in the other! At this stage in life, I took to cooking, find it extremely relaxing! Do you think I should give up the happiness of cooking, feeding, eating, take recourse to what I never liked? Who can guarantee me a tomorrow; another few years of life on this earth? What I believe in is not going berserk with this only life of ours! Any kind of over do is not my thing! Look at the surrounding, what exhaustive work, exercise gets to your body!

DIFFERENT NEWS AROUND THAT TRY TO PULL ME DOWN!

I am an avid social media user, I do not know why all the negative and sad news comes my way! Is it me who always reads about death & destruction? Just when I get to be in a lighter mood; the media houses, people around force me into news that are bound to make one sad! Because I suffer from a condition, I feel miserable even if they are not related to me! News of untimely deaths disturb me the most. In such scenarios, I take to cooking; a better exercise for me working out in gym. In multiple occasions, I have seen a good cup of tea or coffee with fries & fritters have lifted up my spirit, taken off my attention from unwanted topics!

WHAT IS DAL SNACKS?

I actually wanted to prepare "Gathi Bhaja Mix"/ "Gathiya" at home; not with gram flour but with lentil paste! I also forgot to add the baking soda to the mix! Instead of the hard textured gram flour snack, I landed into lentil fritters! The lentil variety used is skinless, split black gram dal / urad dal! We can prepare snacks with any variety of dal / lentil; each will have it's own unique taste I believe! Although, the outcome of my effort was not what I wanted today, I think what I got was interesting enough. This DAL SNACKS is a vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free snack mixture that I enjoyed both with rice, dal & butter and with my hot cuppa! I am actually very particular about what I am having with my tea & coffee! On a Sunday evening yesterday, I prepared "muri makha" for both of us! We were watching a series in Disney Hotstar, I was thinking we knew the son would fly off some day but I did not wish to believe it, I kept escaping from the truth! I have already lessened the amount of cooking because a dumpling & soup or some chapati & sabji, meat or an ilish dish, torkari, dal are enough for us to sustain. Moreover, the excess from what I cook for my clients also makes up for some of our meals!

Actually, I am game for some weekly meals with fritters, fries, butter or ghee, rice & dal! Oh! milk tea are a weekly once or bi-weekly once affair for me.

INGREDIENTS :

SKINLESS SPLIT BLACK GRAM LENTIL / URAD DAL : 1 SMALL TEA CUP

RICE FLOUR : 2 TBSP

GREEN CHILLI : 2

RED CHILLI FLAKE : 1 TSP

SALT : AS REQUIRED

BAKING SODA : 2-3 PINCH [I FORGOT]

CURRY LEAF : 10-12

RAISIN : 10-12

CASHEWNUT : 7-8 [HALVED]

PEANUT : 10-12 [SKIN ON]

OIL : AS MUCH REQUIRED TO DEEP FRY GREASE THE PALMS

PROCEDURE :

I had soaked the skinless, split black gram lentil / dal overnight!

I drained the water, washed the dal, prepared a paste adding one or two green chillies in the blender!

Remember not to add more than 2-3 tbsp water while blending the dal! Else, it would get unmanageable!

Then, I transferred the lentil paste to a bowl, added the rice flour, red chilli flakes, salt to it. Do not forget to add the baking soda! I had beaten it for 2-3 minutes to incorporate everything well!

I greased my two palms, shaped them with the tiny portions taken out. Cristine helped me at this stage. We have to grease our palms from time to time.