CHEKKALU

Chekkalu……this is yet another South Indian snack which is loved by every one. These crispy and light munchies can be had as an evening snack or a picnic snack or an entertainment snack. More over these crisps are made with rice flour, so any number of these can be had without any hesitation. There are many variations in making these. Many combine the gram flour to the rice flour and some others use the urad dal flour. Well, for today I give my version of chekkalu which uses only the rice flour.
INGREDIENTS

• Rice flour                        3 cups
• Green chilies                   3-4
• Ginger                             small piece
• Chana dal                        2 Tsp
• Curry leaves                    a few
• Jeera                              1 tsp
• Butter                             3 Tsp
• Salt                                 to taste
• Oil                                   for deep frying.

PROCEDURE
Soak the chana dal for 2 hours and use it.
Grind the green chilies and ginger to a paste.
In a bowl add the rice flour, ginger chilly paste, butter, salt, jeera, chana dal, curry leaves.
Combine well. Butter should completely mix with the flour and a crumbling mixture should be formed.
Now make a thick dough using hot water. Be careful while adding the hot water. The dough should be thicker than the murukulu dough.
Rest the dough for 20 minutes.
Heat oil in thick bottomed deep pan.
Make a round out of a small amount of dough and place it on a greased sheet or banana leaf.
Press it flat into a 2” dia circle with your greased fingers.
Alternatively you can layer another greased sheet over the dough ball and press it with a small plate. This way you can avoid finger prints on the chekkalu.
Now prick some holes on the chekkalu so that they don’t puff up while frying. 

Gently remove the chekkalu from the greased sheet and Drop a batch of 5-6 of them into the hot oil.
Fry them on a medium flame to crisp golden brown.
Remove them onto a paper towel.
Serve 5-6 of them along with any sweet.
These can be stored for up to 20 days or even more.
TIPS

• Butter added to the dough makes the chekkalu crisp and light.
• Pricking the chekkalu with a fork makes the steam escape through these holes and the rice crackers will remain flat.
• Greasing the sheet with oil is an important step. This way you can easily remove them easily from the sheet.
• If you cannot make the dough with hot water, I give an alternate procedure for making the dough. Place the dry rice flour in a bowl, cover it and steam it in a pressure cooker for 10 minutes without whistle. Now remove the bowl, let the flour cool and then add the other ingredients in it and make the dough using plain water.