payatam paniyaram is a very famous snack/sweet made during the Tamil New Year. This is also a very common snack/sweet made for weddings and other special occasions.
- 1 cup mung bean flour (payatam ma)
- ½ cup roasted rice flour
- ½ cup castor sugar
- ¼ teaspoon cardamom powder
- Pinch of salt
- Oil for deep frying
For the Batter:
- Unroasted rice flour
- Pinch of salt
- Water
Method
- Mix the flours, sugar, salt and cardamom powder
- Add about 1 tablespoon of boiling/hot water and with a back of a wooden spoon mix well. If it’s too dry add a little bit of water at a time and mix. The consistency should be like wet soil. If too much water is added, the flour mix will become gooey and difficult to make the balls
- Let cool for a while and make into small balls – size of a marble
- Heat oil in a vessel
- Once the oil is hot, dip the balls in batter and drop into the oil one at a time and fry until golden. (You can fry more than one ball at a time. Since I used a big vessel, I fried about 8 – 9 balls at the same time. But don’t throw a handful of them into the oil simultaneously since they will stick to each other)
- Drain on paper towel.
To make the batter:
- Mix salt and flour and add enough water and mix well without any lumps.
- The consistency of batter should be like that of crepes batter (very thin batter)
Note: Some people add toasted shredded coconut to the payatam paniyaram flour mixture. You can also add a little bit of ground black pepper for a sweet and spicy taste.
