Bajji (deep fried South Indian snack)




I was in Fort Myers, Florida a few months back at my friends. Had a great time with his wife and 2 sons, such naughty ones at that! I was there for about 5 days. We went to the Edison estates and spent quite some time. Didn't know this grand guy invented so many things that are indispensable in our every day life. And what more, Ford seems to have been his student and later partner!

Edison's lab in his Fort Myers estate

The next trip was to the Kennedy Space center. It was an experience. We saw the launcher which was being readied to launch in the next few days. NASA launched Dragon from that site on May 25, 2012. It was so interesting and educational to see all the pre-process.

Dragon launch site at Kennedy Space center

So just to celebrate my experiences in Fort Myers and to say thank you to my hospitable host Vinoth and his wife Aruna, I cooked Bajji, a very simple South India snack. Bajji is been a long overdue on my blog. Bajji is a deep-fried snack. Here is how I made it -

Ingredients:

Keerai (Spinach) - 20 leaves
Uralai Kizhangu (Potato) - 2 cut into rounds
Vengayam (Onion) - 2 cut into lengths
Kadala mavu (Channa dal flour/ Split Bengal gram flour) - 1 cups
Molagai podi (Red chilli powder) - 1/4 tsp
Salt - to taste

Procedure: 

* Heat enough oil for deep frying.
* Mix flour, chilli powder and salt into a batter. Batter should be thick enough to coat the vegetables for frying.
* Dip each piece of the cut potato in the batter and deep fry in oil. You can fry as many pieces as the oil quantity and the utensil will permit.
* Next will be frying spinach. Spinach may not look like taking the batter on it, but that's how it is, as you can see in the photo below. Spinach bajji is still green compared to others.
* Finally onion. I personally like to bite crisply fried batter and onion. So I add all the onion into the batter mix them well. This mixture will become thick. Fry them as is.
* Take the bajji onto oil absorbing towels.
* Serve hot.




Note:

* Pepper powder (white / black) can be used instead of red chilli powder. The color of the bajji becomes lighter if pepper powder is used.
* I personally don't like getting the flavor (smell) of onion in all other bajji, so I fry onion bajji the last. 

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