Ribbon pakoda is one among the endless food possibilities that a food blogger can think of as and when celebrations, festivals are round the corner. When my potential list of sweets and savories for the month of October was getting ready, this pakoda topped the list. I love such crunchy snacks more than any sweets and desserts and I cannot emphasize this enough. My best of best meals have such snacks as side dishes be it rice-rasam, curd-rice or any rice-curry combo. A jar full of ribbon pakoda can get cleared in one or two days without giving me any hint on how and when they disappeared. So crazy it is!!
According to my knowledge ribbon pakoda is traditionally prepared using chickpea flour(besan). But I like rice flour and black gram lentils combination for such snacks. Because it’s a sure WINNER giving the perfect crunchy texture and taste to the snack.
As in my murukku, I tried cooking the blackgram lentils with sufficient water which is then minced to fine puree. The consistency of this batter is also crucial for the perfect texture. It should be flowing like or pouring consistency. When you mix the rice flour and spices with this batter, it gets stiff like a dough. Pressing ribbon pakoda with this dough would give a super rocking snack which you will love for sure.
Ribbon Pakoda using Rice flour
Ingredients
- Split blackgram lentils- 1/4 cup
- Rice flour- 1 cup
- Fresh grated coconut- 1/3 cup
- Cumin seeds- 1 tsp
- Salt- 3/4 tsp
- Green chillies- 1 no.
- Curry leaves- 1 Few
- Cooking oil- Enough to deep fry the pakoda
Instructions
Preparation
- Wash and rinse the lentils in enough water and then adding 1 cup of water pressure cook it for 3 whistles. Simmer for 5 minutes and then switch off. Once the pressure subsides let the cooked lentils cool down.
Method
- Take the cooked lentils in a mixer jar and puree it to very fine paste. Pour this to a wide bowl. In the same mixer add grated coconut, cumin, green chilly and curry leaves. Whir them together to a semi coarse paste.
- Add this coconut paste and rice flour to the same bowl that is having lentil puree. Include salt and combine evrything well to stiff dough.
- The dough shoudn't be loose. Based on the quality of blackgram lentils you may have to add some more rice flour. But ensure it is stiff enough to press. Take a lump of dough and fill the ribbon pakoda press.
- Next heat a wok adding enough cooking oil, when oil gets heated up press ribbon pakoda in to oil. You can press making concentric circle in the oil or press randomly. The oil sizzles for few minutes, turn the pakoda to cook othe rside. When sizzling sound stops completely the pakoda would have turned little brown. Remove and drain them over kitchen tissue.
- Crispy and crunchy ribbon pakoda is ready to munch.
Notes
- Pressure cooking blackgram lentils with enough water is very important. I have used 1 cup of water to cook them that is when I could get soft and completely cooked lentils.
- When you grind the cooked lentils the batter should be of pouring consistency. Adjust water accordingly.
- If you use less water to cook and grind lentils, the pakoda drinks lot of oil.
- Add rice powder little by little to avoid disaster. Because based on the quality of black gram lentils, it requires little less or more rice powder.
- I had to use extra 1/4 cup of rice powder for the stiff dough.
- You can substitute green chilly by red chilly powder too.
- In an air tight container ribbon pakoda lasts more than a fortnight.
- To check oil temperature, drop a pinch of dough in to oil. If it raises to the top then oil is rightly heated up. If the dough settles down or slowly raises then you need to heat oil for some more time.
- Always deep fry the pakoda in medium flame for better results.
