Mirchi Bajji / Menasinakaayi Bajji / Molaga Bajji

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Mirchi Bajji (Molaga Bajji in Tamil / Menasinakaayi Bajji in Kannada) always is and will be considered a street food delicacy. Savouring spicy, but not hot chillies dipped in flavoured gram flour and deep fried, along with a hot cup of tea on rainy evenings is a romantic point to moot. One of my earliest childhood memories is passing by this bajjiwala after school who used to have customers munching these fritters hungrily under pouring rain. Somehow I could never get near one – probably for fear of being caught by a neighbor or a friend - who knew eating out was taboo at my house !!

And the same story almost continued into marriage, when S was a staunch anti –street food activist, esp for deep fried food ! I knew I had to seize my chance at making this at home atleast, when one of my shopping trips yielded me these amazingly fresh Bhavnagri chillies right into my shopping basket, and the rest, as they say, is history J

I have slightly modified this recipe having stuffed the thick batter into the chillies and also marinating them in freshly powdered jeera powder and it yielded wonderful results J I am told this is the Davangere style of making mirchi bajjis  !! Do try it out and let me know how you liked it !  Sending this toTuesday's Bookmarked events started by Priya!

Update : Also sending it to Saffron streaks' event -Monsoon Medley

Preparation time : 10 mins. Cooking time : 20 mins. Makes: 10 scrumptiously delightful bajjis.

Ingredients:

·         Green long mirchis / peppers– 10

·         Gram flour / besan – ½ cup

·         Cumin seeds / jeera – 1 tbsp

·         Rice flour – 2 -3 tbsp

·         Salt – to taste

·         Red chilli powder – 1 tsp

·         Fennel seeds / Saunf – 1 tsp

·         Hing – 1 tsp

·         Turmeric powder – 1 tsp

·         Oil – to fry

Method:

1)      Sieve both the flours together without any lumps. Add turmeric, red chilli powder, salt, hing and mix well.

2)     Meanwhile, slit the chillies lengthwise (not the entire length of the chilli) and deseed them. Roast cumin and fennel powder in a dry pan, Cool and roast them. Mix with a pinch of salt and apply this spice mixture into the insides of the chillies (within the slit). Rest for 10 mins.

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Step 2 (above)

3)     Heat oil (about 4 tablespoon first) and pour this hot oil over the dry flour mixture. Incorporate well into the flours till they resemble crumbs. Now add water 3 tablespoon at a time and make a thick slurry. Check for salt as you have already added some to your chilli marinade.

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Step 3

4)     Now take the chillies (with the marinade intact) and dip them into the thick batter (and also into the chillies till they become slightly heavy). Do this to the rest of the chillies one by one

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5)     Check if the oil for frying is hot (in another deep frying pan) and gently slide these chillies one by one and fry on medium heat till they are golden brown

6)     Serve hot with mint chutney / sauce (Mine just simply disappeared before I could think of any dips / sauces)  and steaming cups of tea / coffee

Couldn't resist clicking them up before they disappeared !! 🙂

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