One of the easiest crunchy extruded snacks that you can make at home is omapodi. This is a extruded chickpea noodle snack, ajwain sev, flavoured with carom (omam) seeds and salt. Make it as a snack, to add on to chaat or make it for festivals like Deepavali, Navratri or Krishnajayanthi as it is one of the easiest among crunchy Indian snacks.
Why make these crunchy chickpea noodles at home?
When you consider a household with younger people, making omapodi at home makes so much sense, coz no one is satisfied with a small pack of it. The store-bought ones also have a few other additions to it, sometimes a lot more refined flour in them too. Colouring and preservatives are all under your control when you make some on your own. Try in small batches to practice before attempting a huge batch as extruding the mix over the hot oil is a skill to learn.
Ingredients needed to make omapodi.
Chickpea flour / besan
Salt
Carom seeds / ajwain
Oil
Equipment needed to make the ajwain sev
With just 4 ingredients needed the noodles press like an extrusion tool does the rest of the dough. Usually called Naazhi in Tamil and Malayalam this is a two-part device. small hollow cylinder with a handle that has noodle-like holes on the base. a heavier press that fits into this cylinder presses the dough when placed in the hollow cylinder making them a set. Apply manual pressure to get the extrusion directly over the hot oil.
Deep-frying or baking the omapodi
Classic Omapodi is deep-fried. However, if you bake the extruded noodles at 160 degrees it does come out crispy too. Make sure you like your baking tray so that the omapodi doesn’t stick. The colour of the baked ajwain sev is a bit deeper brown than the fried one.
Omapodi
Equipment
- noodle maker
- mixing bowls and spoons.
- deep fryer
Ingredients
to roast and powder
- 1 tsp carom seeds omam, ajwain
to make a dough
- 1 cup chickpea flour besan
- 1/2 cup Raw rice flour
- salt to taste
- 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/4 tsp Asafoetida
- 1/4 tsp red chilli powder
- 1 tbsp cooking oil use hot oil.
- 1/4 cup drinking water use only as needed to bring the dough together, not all at once.
for frying
- 2 cups cooking oil
Instructions
- Dry roast the carom seeds on a dry pan.
- Let this cool a bit.
- Grind to a fine powder.
- Sift this powder to get the fine powder and set it aside.
To make the dough
- Into the mixing bowl, add the chickpea flour, rice flour, salt, asafortida, turmeric powder and red chilli powder and mix well.
- Add the omam ( ajwain) powder.
- Mix and set aside.
- Heat the oil till it is sizzling when you drop a pinch of flour into it.
- Pour this hot oil into the mixed flour.
- Use a spoon and mix the oil well into the flour mix.
- Carefully bring together the dough by sprinkling water a little at a time.
- Once the dough is smooth and a bit more smoother than scone mix, set it side for 5 minutes.
to fry the omapodi
- Set the oil to heat in a deep fryer to about 350 degrees.
- Prep the extruder ( murukku maker) with the plate that has the thinnest holes. and lightly grease the inner surface of the extruder.
- Make small balls of the dough and place in the murukku maker or extruder
- close the lid.
- Add a pinch of the dough to the deep fryer to test it. if it sizzles right up the oil is ready.
- Press in the chickpea batter into the hot oil till the oil surface is fully covered.
- Remove and reset the dough in the extruder.
- Shake the basket to release the sticking bits of dough.
- As the omapodi stops bubbling, remove it and place it on a plate to cool.
- Crush the noodles into smaller bits when cool and store in air tight containers.
- The omapodi is now ready to be served.
How to store the omapodi?
Omapodi stays perfectly crunchy in an airtight box for about a month. Usually, we make a bigger batch and store it in a bix box. We remove a small portion into a smaller box and consume that to ensure the big box doesn’t loose its freshness. Dry hands or tongs to remove the batch so the snack can remain crunchy.
Recipes you can add omapodi to.
Chaats – Omapodi is the first substitute to sev when you are trying Bengaluru-style chaats. So you can add this to pineapple chaat, tomato slice or nipattu masala.
Curry – Add the ajwain sev to the basic buna masala to create a quick and easy curry to go with your triangle parathas.
Raita- Whip up the classic cucumber raita and top it with ajwain sev for a summer special. You can have this with meals or as lunch by itself.
Sandwich- Here is a young one special! Upgrade your chutney Sandwich with a layer of omapodi. That crunch is all that the sandwich needed.
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