Thattai Recipes | Crispy South Indian Snack for Krishna Jayanthi

Thattai is a South Indian snack, prepared on auspicious occasions such as Sri Krishna Jayanthi. This dish is known by different names in different places. Telugu-speaking people call it “Chekkalu” and Kannadigans call it “Nippattu”. It can be prepared in salted and sweet tastes, and is mostly prepared using rice flour. I have already added one Sweet Thatta recipe using wheat flour and jaggery. In this column, we shall prepare two salted variants using all-purpose flour and rice flour.

Thattai Recipe – Using All-Purpose Flour

Ingredients for Maida Thattai:

1. Maida – 1.5 cups
2. Chana gram dal powdered (Bengal gram powdered) – ¾ cup
   Black gram dal fried and powdered – ½ cup
3. Ghee – 1 big spoon
4. Red chilli seeds – ¼ small spoon
   Asafoetida powder – 1 small spoon
   Salt – For taste
5. Chana dal (Pottukadala) – 2 big spoons
   Coconut pieces – 2 big spoons
   Groundnut chopped fine – 1 big spoo
   Red chilli skin chopped fine – 1 big spoon
6. Water – ¾ cup, approximately
7. Oil – For frying  

How to prepare Maida Thattai?

1. Wrap maida in a cotton cloth and make it into a bundle.
2. Steam this bundle for half an hour using a steamer.
3. Transfer the maida to a plate, remove lumps, and allow it to cool.
4. Blend ingredients no: 2 together and add to the maida.
5. Mix the powders well.
6. Add ghee and mix the flour using fingers. The flour should be similar to flour prepared from the steam cake.
7. Make a fine paste of ingredients no: 4, sprinkling a little water.
8. Add this paste to the maida mixture, followed by ingredients no: 5.
9. Mix the ingredients together, add water, and prepare the dough.
10.  Make gooseberry-sized balls from this dough.
11. Place each dough in a plastic sheet or banana leaf and spread to prepare Thattai.
12. Deep-fry them in hot oil till they turn golden brown.
13.  Serve with any side dish of your choice.

Courtesy: Vanitha Magazine, September 1-14, 2019 Archive

Also read a few all-purpose flour (maida) snack dishes. Here is the page link. Click on the images in the gallery to read.