Oma podi (sev)

Omapodi (plain sev) is a savory snack of India. The flavor of these crispy snacks comes from a seed called omam / ajwain / bishop weed. This is one of my most favorite snack. I prepared this on a Friday evening to give as surprise gift for my hubby. In my house, preparing some snacks for weekends is a must, otherwise hubby will buy a pack of snack from any first grocery store we enter :)  Homemade snacks are not only fresh and delicious, they are definitely an inexpensive way to show our love for our family :)  This recipe is my mom's , which she got from our 'Tuticorin ladies club cook book'.

Omapodi (sev) ready to be served with evening tea.

various sev / omapodi pressing molds. I used the middle one for a Tamilnadu style omapodi. Very thin sev is used for chaats.

Ingredients: Flours and ajwain seed powdered.

The flavor of the oma podi comes from omam seeds (ajwain).

Before squeezing omapodi.

Oma podi gets crispy within a minute of frying.

Perfectly prepared oma podi should not absorb any oil.  Anyways stack them over kitchen towel.

Ingredients:
Besan flour - 1 cup
rice flour - 1/4 cup
salt - 1 tsp (to taste)
ajwain (omam) - 1 tsp
oil - to deep fry

Method:
Put the flours in a wide mixing bowl.
Run the ajwain seed in mixie and powder it finely. Add some water and make a fine paste. Add the above said salt to this and dissolve it in 1/4 cup water. Extract the omam juice. Likewise extract another time.
Add this to the flours. Mix well , so that it gets a 'soft sticky chapati dough' (or cookie dough) consistency. Fit a required sized hole in the pressing mold (see photo above). Fill the omapodi / sev presser (idiyappa kuzhal).
In the same time , heat enough oil to deep fry in a frying pan.
As soon as the oil got hot, reduce the flame to medium heat and squeeze the omapodi directly to the oil in a circular form. Oma podi gets cooked in less than a minute. So flip once and cook both sides and take out still it is yellow in color, but completely crispy. This is the correct texture for the sev / oma podi. keep it over paper towels to drain oil.  Oma podi is ready.

Serving suggestions:
Serve as snack with evening tea.
Omapodi is one of the major ingredients in the popular Indian snack , the 'mixture' / namkeen.
The same sev, if prepared using a very fine pressing mold , is used as a garnishing item in chaat foods.

Note:
Perfectly prepared omapodi should not absorb oil.