Mathri – anytime snack

Festive seasons come and go but snacking and entertaining guests always continues. And this calls for snack recipes.

During Diwali we all make various kinds of delicacies. All these are consumed in a couple of days as we have guests visiting. But the craving for these do not end. So why not prepare these once again?

Festival or no festival – delicacies and snacks are always there to stay. And one pretty popular snack is the mathri.

The mathri recipe is a pretty simple one. Just a handful of ingredients and little to no expertise is acceptable. You need not achieve perfect round circles and yet these are perfectly okay.

To make the mathri you need:

Ingredients:

• Maida – 4 cups
• Besan – 1 cup
• Ghee – 1 cup
• Ajwain – 1 tbsp
• Salt as per taste
• Oil for deep frying

Method:

Sieve the maida in a large bowl. Sieve the besan and salt in the same bowl.

Add the ajwain to the maida and besan mix.

Add ghee to the flours and mix. It is best to use your hands to mix the ghee and the flours.

When well mixed the flour will look like breadcrumbs. Take a handful of the flour and hold it tight in your fist. It should take the shape of your fist but crumble when pressed.

Now add cold water bit by bit to kneed the flour into a dough. The dough should not be too hard or too soft. It is okay if you can see white streaks in the dough.

Divide the dough into small lemon sized balls.

Put the oil to heat in a heavy bottom kadai or wok. There should be enough oil to allow the mathris to float.

Roll out each ball into small round disks. Maintain a thickness of 3-4 mm.

Insert rolled out mathris into the hot oil and cook on a low flame.

When one side is brown flip the mathris to cook on the other side.

When you get a golden brown colour on both sides consider the mathris done.

Remove from oil and place on absorbent towel.

Allow the mathris to cool. Store in an airtight container for upto a week, ten days or till they last.