How to make crispy & crunchy Poha Chiwda
Poha Chiwda as called in Marathi, is a Namkeen or snack made using poha/rice flakes. Poha Chiwda is a very popular snack in Maharashtra. This namkeen/snack is mainly made during Diwali festival. But now a days it can be made conveniently anytime as a snack. Along with Poha Chiwda many other snack and sweets are also prepared during Diwali, but Chiwda being the most liked one is made in large quantity.
The preparation starts few days before Diwali as the list is long. There is Chiwda, chakli, shakarpala, shev/bhujiya, Anarse, karangi, ladu called ladoo in Hindi.
In India it is tradition of preparing the snacks and sweets at home … it makes a difference!!! I still remember I use to help my mother preparing all these snacks. Even today I make it at home during Diwali and also teach my daughter and son to follow the culture & tradition.
You can also try my other recipes of snacks like
Poha Chiwda is mainly prepared by two ways. In the first method poha is roasted and then mix with other spices . The other way is to deep fry the poha and then mixing with the spices. Both the Chiwda differs a lot in taste. The taste of chiwda is different in both the methods.
Here I’m sharing the second way of making the poha chiwda.
Ingredients:
- Poha(mota/thick) – 1 kg
- Peanut – 1 ½ cup
- Sliced dry coconut – 1 cup
- Finely chopped green chilli – 20
- Roughly chopped coriander leaves – 1 ½ cup
- Curry leaves – 2 cups
- Roasted chana dal – ½ cup
- Red chilli powder – 1 tbsp
- Turmeric powder – 1 tbsp
- Salt – to taste
- Fennel seed – ¾ cup
- Coriander powder – 1 tbsp
- Oil – for frying
- Powdered sugar(optional) – 1 tbsp
Method:
- Keep all the ingredients ready.
- Use a large bowl with wide circumference so that the mixing of the ingredients is easy.
- First we are going to fry poha, peanuts, sliced coconut, coriander leaves, green chilli & curry leaves.
- Heat oil in a deep bottom kadhai. Use a deep frying sieve for frying the poha. Remember that the oil in the kadhai should be always filled to ¾ level.
- Once the oil is hot, reduce the flame to medium.
- Now start frying the poha. Take fistful of poha in the sieve, and dip it in the hot oil. The poha will puff up immediately. Remove the fried poha in a large bowl.
- Try to maintain the temperature of the oil. If the temperature of the oil drops down , poha will not puff properly. Add oil whenever the level goes down and heat it properly and then only start frying the poha. Do this process without any break because once the poha is fried, we will be adding all the spices immediately till the poha is hot.
- When the poha is fried, add red chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt.
- Mix gently and quickly so that all the spices gets evenly coated over the fried poha.
- Now we are going to fry the other ingredients separately and add it to the poha.
- However we will be mixing all the ingredients at last.
- Roast the fennel seed, cool it and grind to a coarse powder. Then fry it with some oil on a tawa or in a pan.
- Add the fried fennel to the poha.
- Deep fry peanuts on low flame till light pink colour. Add it immediately to the poha.
- In the same oil fry the slice coconut. The coconut should be of the same thickness for the uniform frying. It takes just few seconds to fry dry coconut. Add it to the fried poha.
- Similarly deep fry curry leaves, chopped green chilli and chopped coriander separately and add to the poha.
- Add the roasted chana dal.
- Add the powdered sugar.
- Mix all the ingredients properly.
- Let it cool to room temperature.
- Store in a clean and airtight container.
