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.