The mouth water-ring Kodbale!

It all started with Amma coming to Chennai to see us off at the airport when A and I were leaving for the US. After marriage, that is. She thrusted, in my hand, a packet of the delicious Kodbale. At this point, I must say that I'm not a fan of fried stuff like Murukku or Kodbale, so I refused to take it citing weight issues. She anyway stuffed it in my bag.

We reach the US, unpack and fall ill, not necessarily in that order. Both of us come down with the Flu which was making its rounds in our region in the US. We were too tired to talk to each other, leave alone cook! However, that did not stop us from sorting out the 'kalyana bhakshanam' and other assorted eats sent by our parents. Imagine running a temperature of 104F and removing packets of Murukku and Kodbale and the numerous thokkus. Sigh.

Well, to get back, A's eyes fell upon these Kodbale and he devoured them in 2 days. A, being A called/emailed/voice-chatted with Amma and told her how much he liked the Kodbale and pestered her for the recipe. So one day, she gave it to us and A made it. And boy, can he cook or what! :) I was impressed. If anyone can make 'bhakshanam,' then they've arrived in my world! So, here is the recipe and see how ours came out!

Ingredients:

1 cup All-Purpose flour or Maida
2 cups Rice Flour
1/2 cup grated/dessicated coconut
3-4 red chillies
2 Tbsp butter
Salt to taste

1. Grind coconut and red chillies with very little water. Just enough for it to get mixed and still remain mostly dry.

2. In a mixing bowl, add Maida or All-Purpose flour, the rice flour and the salt. Mix these dry ingredients well. Once they are mixed and do not have any lumps, add the butter. Make sure the butter is fairly soft and not hard. This ensures that the dough comes out uniform, and more importantly, gets done fast! Now, mix all of this to make a dough. Do not add water yet.

3. To this mixture, add the coconut-chilli paste. Mix again. Then add water in very less amounts. We do not want a runny dough here. The dough should be fairly thick!

4. Now, take a lemon-sized ball and roll it horizontally to form what we used to call a snake when we were kids :)

5. Now, place this snake :) on a plastic sheet or a plate and roll it into a bangle. Yeah, 'bale' in Kannada is bangle! Like this -

6. You can either roll them out this way and then fry them in batches or do the frying of the Kodbales and the rolling on the side simultaneously. There is no danger of the dough getting dry or anything like that. Take another peek!

This recipe makes 20-25 Kodbales and is fairly simple to make. In fact, the very nutrition and calorie conscious A was shocked by the very less amount of oil that the snack soaked. The key was to add very less water!

This is our first post, and we are really excited about this blog :) Do let us know what you thought!