Chettinadu Masal Paniyaram

Masal Paniyaram is a bonus savory dish that you can make when you couple it with Paal Paniyaram with no extra effort involved. Its the same batter, you just need to add some tempering into it to make this super delicious Masal Paniyaram. So almost always when I plan to make one of them the other accompanies it. Also medhu vadai for every other festival breakfast really bores me. So this Diwali Masala Paniyaram took Medhu Vadais place :).

Ingredients

Serves - 5
Prep Time - 30 min
Cook time - 30 min

For the Paniyaram

1/3 cup urad dal
1/2 cup raw rice
Oil - for deep frying the paniyarams

Other Items
Onion - 1 medium sized, minced finely
Curry Leaves - handful, chopped well
Green chilli - 3-4, chopped finely
Salt

For Tempering
Oil - 1 Tsp
Hing - a generous pinch
Mustard - 1 Tbsp

How do you do it

1. Soak the rice and dal in enough water for 1-2 hrs. Drain the water and reserve it. Grind in blender/mixie using the reserved water little by little. Add water needed only for your grinder blade to rotate smoothly, the lesser water you use the better. If you add too much water, the paniyarams will soak oil. Grind it to a very smooth paste, there should be no dal/rice particles left as such. Transfer to a container and keep aside. You can grind this the previous night and refrigerate to to use in the morning.

2. Add required salt, chopped onion, green chilli, curry leaves into the batter and mix well.

3. Heat 1 Tsp oil in a kadai. Add hing and mustard, let them pop. Pour this tempering into the batter and mix well again.

4. Heat oil in a kadai to deep fry the paniyarams. Spoon the paniyaram batter little by little into the kadai. Add till the kadai is almost full, fry in low-medium flame. When the paniyarams start to turn golden brown, remove them on a tissue paper.

Serve with sambar/chutney!

Notes

Grind smoothly with as little water as possible. This is a very important step, adding too much water will make the paniyarams soak oil.

Fry in medium-low flame, do effective flame management to make sure the insides of the paniyarams are cooked well.