Home-made Vatrals/ Vathals (fryums)

Vatahals/Vatrals come as instant saviors when we are running a little low on side dish for rice. They make the meal tasty and satisfying too. Whenever we talk of vathals I remember those days (usually sundays) when we go along with my mom and grandma to the open terrace above our house and make them early morning before the sun starts to show his strong rays. Actually sun light is the most important thing needed for drying this and as it is available sufficient back home in Chennai, making this had never been a question there. Thats is the reason why its usually  made during the months of march - april, when the sun is bright and less wind. And its usually made in huge batches which will be stocked for the entire year.

When I thought of doing this in my place where we don't have a place like open terrace, I decided to keep it near my living room window where I will get some sunlight during the day time (I made it well ahead in summer, but sorry for posting it in fall). I was lucky for the first day, but the second  day didn't had much sunlight to dry up the other side. So I heated my convection oven on "warm setting" to dry it out completely. It took 3 days for my vathals to get dried completely. Thankfully it came out well and my family loves this so much. And I got the satisfaction of making some home-made vathals.

I tried both rice and javvarisi vathals. Here goes the recipe


Javvarasi/ Sabudana vathal

Ingredients:

Javvarisi/sabudana- 1 cup (soak overnight)
Green chilli - 2
Asafoetida/Hing - 1/4 tsp
Water - 1 cup
Salt

Procedure:

Grind the soaked javvarisi with green chillies and hing for 2 secs.

Heat water in a pan and add the ground paste to this. Mix salt.

Boil it till it gets cooked and the water is well absorbed to a semi solid state. Let it cool for half an hour.

Take a clean plastic sheet. Use a spoon to take 1 tsp of the spread it on the sheet. Try to make it flat and thin circles.

Let this dry under sun the whole day. After the top part is dry turn the vathals to dry the other side of the vathal.

Make sure you dry it well, absolutely dry without any moisture, so it will have long shelf life and it will be frying well too.

 

 

 

Rice/arisi vathal

Ingredients:

Cooked rice - 1 cup
Green chilli - 2
Asafoetida/Hing - 1/4 tsp
chopped Onion - 1
Salt

Procedure:

Grind the cooked rice with green chillies and hing slightly. Or else you can even mash the rice if its well cooked.

To this mix salt and finely chopped onions. This will be very sticky.

Take a clean plastic sheet. Apply little oil on your hands. Take small balls of the rice mix and keep it on the plastic sheet. The balls need not have to be perfect shape.

Let this dry under sun the whole day. After the top part is dry turn the vathals to dry the other side of the vathal. As the sun was not very hot the day I made it, I had to heat the oven in "warm setting" for an hour and dried it there.

Make sure you dry it well, absolutely dry without any moisture, so it will have long shelf life and it will be frying well too.

Store them in airtight containers. Fry in hot oil and serve. It goes very well with sambar and curd rice.


Store them in airtight containers. Fry in hot oil and serve. It goes very well with sambar and kara kuzhambu.