Recipe to prepare spicy South Indian mixture:

Preparation:

Mixing Omapodi dough:

• In a wide bowl, sieve and take besan flour.
• Add a tablespoon of rice flour for crispness.
• Now add the spice powders hing, salt, and turmeric powder.
• Mix all the dry powder with your fingers and add water gradually to make the firm at the same time soft non-sticky omapodi dough.
• Keep it aside covered.

Mixing Boondi batter:

• Sieve a cup of Besan flour into a bowl.
• Add the spice powders hing, turmeric powder, salt, and a pinch of cooking soda. Cooking soda or baking soda helps for crispy boondi.
• Now add water gradually and make a lump less boondi batter. The batter should be of slightly thicker than dosa batter consistency.

Other ingredients:

• Take all the other ingredients required for a mixture like Aval(rice flakes/Poha), peanuts, fried gram, cashew nuts, and few curry leaves readily.

How to fry omapodi:

• Heat enough oil to do all the deep frying. Check the temperature of the oil by putting a small pinch of dough into the oil and it should rise instantly. If the piece sits inside the oil, then wait for few more minutes until the oil becomes very hot to fry.
• Use the omapodi slot and stuff the dough into the murukku maker.
• Press in a circular motion like this into the hot oil.
• The omapodi gets fried immediately with the oozing sound.
• Flip once in between.
• When the bubbles disappear completely, remove from the oil and drain into a tissue paper.
• Repeat the same process for all the batches to make omapodi. Before making each batch, wait for the oil to become hot again.
• Set aside the fried omapodi.

How to fry boondi:

• Heat the same oil again until perfect temperature. Check the temperature before frying boondi, as mentioned above in Oma podi preparation.
• Use a boondi ladle as shown here or any perforated/holed ladle for making boondi.
• Pour a ladle full of boondi batter and spread in a circular motion like this into the hot oil.
• If you are using a normal perforated ladle, then while spreading please be careful as the batter may fall off the edges of the ladle and you will get sticky bajji shapes instead of round boondis.
• The boondis should get fried instantly on top of the hot oil.
• Tip: please note if you are boondis are coming with tails then the batter is very thick, add some water and do the process again. And if your boondis are flat, that means the batter is very thin, add some besan flour and proceed with the steps.
• Stir in between for even frying.
• Remove from oil when the buzzing sound stops and bubbles disappear.
• Repeat the same for making all boondis and keep aside. Make sure the oil is hot before making each batch.

How to fry other ingredients:

• Heat the same oil again for few minutes and fry a cup of rice flakes (Aval).
• Fried aval instantly comes up and puffs up.
• Remove from oil and keep aside.
• Now maintain the high heat and fry fried-gram in the same oil.
• In a few minutes, the fried gram becomes golden color. Removes from the oil & keep aside.
• Again heat the same oil for few minutes.
• Fry a cup of raw peanuts. Raw peanuts take up to 8 minutes to become completely fried.
• If you are using already roasted peanuts then reduce the frying time.
• When the skin of the peanut becomes dark, remove from oil and keep aside.
• Now in the same hot oil, fry cashew nut pieces and keep aside.

How to make spicy mixture:

• In a wide bowl take all the fried ingredients.
• You can crush the omapodi into small bite-size pieces as shown.
• Add Chilli powder, salt and a teaspoon of sugar. Sugar helps to enhance the taste of the mixture.
• Mix all the ingredients with the spice powders evenly. You can toss slowly and mix.
• The spice powders will stick with the fried ingredients while tossing.
• Enjoy the spicy South Indian mixture for Diwali. You can store this in a tight jar. It stays good and crispy up to 15 days.