OmaPodi / Plain Sev

Omapodi / Plain sev is one of the popular savory snack made during Diwali Festival. My mom too never fails to make a big batch of this crispy & crunchy sev during the Festival time. But she mostly make Omapodi with Yellow Moongdal Flour, this is with Besan flour which is even more simple version and this plain sev can be used in Chaat Preparations. So part of my Chaat posts this sev recipe follows :) This plain sev or omapodi can be served as a tea time snack or as a side dish with rasam or sambar rice. Now off to the recipe...

Ingredients

1. Besan Flour / Gram flour / Kadalamaavu    1 cup
2. Rice Flour        1/4 cup + 1 tbsp
3. Omam / Ajwain seeds / Carom seeds    1 tsp
4. Red chilli powder     1/2 tsp
5. Hing/Asafoetida       a generous pinch
6. Salt       to taste
7. Hot oil      1 and 1/2 tbsp
8. Oil      to deep fry

Method

• First heat  a pan then dry roast ajwain seeds for a minute then soak it in water for 10-15 minutes.
• And then blend it in a blender and filter the water alone using tea filter and keep this ajwain water aside.

• Now in a medium size bowl, sift gram flour, rice flour and add salt, chilli powder, hing and combine well.
• To this add hot oil and ajwain water and mix well then using water knead it to a non sticky dough, first it will be sticky then add few drops on oil on hand and mix well.

• That's it the dough ready to make omapodi. Divide the dough into 3 equal portion or divide it based on your murukku press size(i fried the above portion in 3 batches).
• Now grease the murukku press with oil and place big ball sized dough on the press use the sev/idiyappam press plate/achchu(see pic).
• Then Heat oil in a kadai to deep fry, once it get heated keep the heat to medium and now directly squeeze sev into the hot oil.

• Fry on both sides until the bubbles disappear and hissing sound stop.
• This takes only 1-2 minutes or less, sev cooks more fast.
• Do repeat the same process for all the dough. The dough should be kept covered until use.
• Once done...after the omapodi gets cooled, crush it with your hands and store the omapodi/sev in air tight container.

Notes:
Do not add omam/ajwain seeds more than 1 tsp, if so it will give bitterness to the sev.
And also addition of more oil to the dough will also makes the sev bitter.
Adding chilli powder is optional.
Do not make the dough too tight and dry, if so it will be hard to press and also do not make a loose batter, this will lead to oily sev.
You can use any cup measurement like any tumbler, cups, bowl if you are ok with eye measurement to make 1/4 cup of the same..if not plz use the standard measurement cups.
To the same recipe you can also use 1 tbsp butter,melted.