My all time favorite snack in Indian cuisine is Mathri and as you can imagine, I have tried to sample them in every possible chance. One can make different variation's of mathri with varying proportion's of all purpose flour(Maida)/oil/water. However, it is indeed quite difficult to make the "soft" mathri's which melt in your mouth. Mathri's made by my naniji-in-law fall in the category of "melt-in-mouth" and are undoubtedly the best I have tried so far. Enjoy this recipe from Naniji:
Yield: 25-30 mathri
Ingredients:
1.5 cup All purpose flour (Maida)
1/4 cup oil for dough
3/8-1/2 cup warm water
1/4-1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ajwain
1/2-1 cup oil for frying
In a wide& deep plate (parat), mix salt, ajwain, flour and 1/4 cup oil. Rub this mixture with hands for about 10-15 minutes. More you rub, more oil will be absorbed by flour and less water will be needed to make the final dough.
Sprinkle small amount of luke warm water and slowly rub the dough between your palms. If you prefer, divide the dough into three portions and work with individual portion. Once all the water is used, divide the entire dough into 25-30 equal parts. Finally rub each of the parts and slightly roll with a rolling pin to get 1/8-1/4 inch thickness. Keep aside all the rolled parts.
Now heat oil in a frying pan at low flame, put 6-10 mathri's in the pan depending upon its size. Fry until golden (~ five mins) and then increase the flame and quickly turn them in oil until slightly red in color and take them out. Decrease the flame again and repeat for all the batches. Make sure that they are cooked at low flame otherwise they will be uncooked from inside.
PS: you can use the same recipe with slightly more water (1/4-1/2 cup extra depending upon the crispiness you like) and roll them really thin for making the semi crisp papri for papri chat.
7 comments:
I am so excited about this recipe! I have wanted to learn this basic skill for so long. I am going to try making mathri soon. Thanks for sharing!
Banayi maine mathri.. will post the picture soon :)
cool..did you like them ? I feel I don't get the same taste as nani-in-law's handmade mathri evenif I use her recipe - nani ke haathon ka jaadu:)
I think taste turned out good. Even Ajay who is very picky about mathri and only like the ones made by his mom liked them. I changed the recipe a bit after asking MIL about it over the phone. Instead of just maida, I put whole wheat, maida and sooji combo. Also, I substituted oil with ghee in the dough. I think the ghee must have gone a long way in contributing it to the taste. :D Plus I cooked it in oil on med-low heat till they turned light pink which was about 10 minutes for each batch.
I am glad :) I agree ghee would have enhanced the taste:) what was the ratio of wheat, sooji and maida?
MIL said half aata, quarter maida and quarter sooji. But since I was making with total 1.5 cups flour, the measurements were turning tricky (I didn't know how to do 3/8 cups). So I used 3/4 cup aata, 1/2 cup maida and 1/4 cup sooji
Interesting - thats a lot of wheat flour. I have heard of maida and sooji in mathri before but never heard of aata. Something to try for the next time.
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