Bombay mix

A dozen separately fried things tossed together, each kept crunchy.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 150 g gram flour, for the sev
• about 80 ml water, for the sev
• 100 g raw peanuts
• 100 g chana dal, soaked 2 hours and dried
• 100 g flattened rice, thick poha
• 80 g puffed rice
• 60 g gram flour ganthiya, broken
• 2 onions, sliced very thin
• 30 curry leaves
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds, ground
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 teaspoon chilli powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons caster sugar
• oil for deep frying

Method

1. A DOZEN SEPARATELY FRIED THINGS TOSSED TOGETHER, EACH KEPT CRUNCHY -- and its article's own definition is exactly that and no more: an INDIAN SNACK MIX OF SPICY DRIED INGREDIENTS, SUCH AS SEV, FRIED LENTILS, PEANUTS, CHICKPEAS, CHICKPEA FLOUR GANTHIYA, CORN, VEGETABLE OIL, PUFFED RICE, FRIED ONION AND CURRY LEAVES, SEASONED WITH SALT AND SPICES THAT MAY INCLUDE CORIANDER AND MUSTARD SEEDS. It adds that WHILST INGREDIENTS VARY PER REGION AND HOUSEHOLD, EACH VARIETY SEEKS A COMBINATION OF CRUNCHY INGREDIENTS. There is no single step in it. The recipe is a list and an order.
2. SO THE PROPORTIONS AND THE TEMPERATURES BELOW ARE MINE. The article names the components and gives no weight for any of them and no frying instruction at all. What it fixes is WHICH things; how much of each, and how hot, is a choice.
3. FRY THEM IN ORDER OF HOW MUCH HEAT THEY WANT, LOWEST FIRST, IN THE SAME OIL. Peanuts in moderate oil for four minutes. Then the dried chana dal, five minutes, until it stops hissing. Then the poha, which takes fifteen seconds and puffs. Each one out onto paper before the next goes in.
4. THE ONIONS GO LAST AND SLOWEST, AND THEY ARE THE PART PEOPLE GET WRONG. Sliced paper-thin, into oil that is barely shimmering, and stirred for eight or nine minutes until they are an even brown. Pulled out pale they go soft in the tin within a day.
5. THE CURRY LEAVES ARE A FIVE-SECOND JOB. Dry leaves, straight into the hot oil, out the moment they stop spitting. They should shatter between your fingers.
6. MAKE THE SEV BY PRESSING BATTER STRAIGHT INTO THE OIL. Gram flour and water to a thick batter with a little salt and turmeric, pushed through a sev press or a coarse sieve into medium-hot oil in a spiral. Thirty seconds, no colour. Broken up when cool.
7. THE SEASONING IS TOSSED THROUGH COLD, NOT COOKED. Coriander, ground mustard, turmeric, chilli, salt and the sugar, all mixed dry first and then scattered through the lot. On anything still warm it goes sticky and clumps.
8. COMBINE IT ONLY WHEN EVERY PART IS COMPLETELY COLD, AND KEEP IT AIRTIGHT. One warm handful will soften the whole tin by morning. The puffed rice and the ganthiya go in last and are folded through rather than stirred, because they are the two that break.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under India · All recipes