Ready made flours - Gram flour/ Besan , Urad dal flour, Moong Dal flour.
Dry roasting the salt in the same pan in which the cholafali will be fried.
All the flours taken in a bowl along with Salt
Cooking soda added to the flour
And everything sieved together.
Only after getting this we realized it should have been yellow moong dal flour which will not have the skin on.
Add the ghee
Crumble everything together.
Slowly sprinkle water and knead to a stiff dough.
It was this stiff and cracking. Yet the moong dal had some gluten and it was not exactly that brittle.
This is after resting it for 10 mints and adding few more drops of water.
Pounding it to your heart's content.
We were able to get this transparent sheet like dough only after dusting it with little all purpose flour and rolling out.
This was the second batch that puffed up very well.
A mix of kali namak / Black salt with chili powder.
Fried batch from the first slot.
From the second slot.
Even though these didn't puff up, they were very crispy and Konda loved it.
Cholafali | Chola Fali
Gram flour / Besan - 2 cups
Mathia flour - 2 cups (alternately, mix 1 cup each of powdered urad dhal and powdered moong dhal)
Ghee - 2 tbsps
cooking soda - 1/8th tsp
Salt as per taste
Oil - 4 tbsp
Oil for deep frying
For sprinkling on top:
Red chilli powder - 3 tsps
Black Salt / Kala Namak - 3 tsps
Notes: The salt to be added should be first dry roasted in the pan that you are going to deep fry the cholafali. This way it will not absorb lot of oil during frying. Make sure you don't add too much as you will be sprinkling black salt on the fried snack.
Original recipe says we need to use 4 tbsp for pounding and to grease the surface. We had the need to dust the dough with Maida before rolling out thin sheets. So one will ultimately check out the dough that's formed.
How to Make Cholafali / Chola Fali
In a wide bowl, take all the flours along with the roasted salt and soda. Sieve it together and mix well.
Add the ghee to the flour. Mix well.
Now start adding very little water and knead to a stiff dough. At this stage the recipes says it should be so stiff that you may feel it crack. But I think you can add few more drops of water and knead again.
Rest the dough for 10 - 15 minutes.
Clean a portion of the kitchen floor / counter top for pounding the dough.
Before starting to pound, knead the dough again. Then divide the dough in smaller portions. Using a pestle, beat the dough down on the clean surface adding few drops oil every now and then. Repeat the fold / beat/ grease/ fold operation until the dough feels light and elastic and acquires a lighter shade.
After few times we realized that we had to dust it with all purpose flour and we did it. I am not sure how authentic this step is, but it surely helped us get the rolled out sheet very thin and off the surface.
Repeat with the entire portion of the dough.
Keep this dough covered while you pinch out small balls off it and roll out thin discs.
It is advised to keep the rolled discs also covered to avoid drying by exposure to air. Since we fried in batches, the rolled out pieces were fried right away.
Keep the oil for deep frying on.
Cut out strips off the dough.
Meanwhile, mix the black salt and red chilli powder in a bowl and keep ready.
When the oil is hot, deep fry the strips, few at a time in hot oil.
Depending on how well you have pound and rolled out, the cholafali will puff well. Fry them until they are crisp.
Remove from the oil with a slotted ladle and transfer to a dish.
Check for the crispness and sprinkle the chilli-salt mix on top immediately while the falis are warm.
Serve them as a snack and enjoy!
Notes:
The dough has to be stiff but still pliable. This is got by pounding well.
Beating it down well ensures that the falis puff well.
Make sure you roll out very thin, as thick strips will tend to become soggy.
Do not add more than the required amount of oil. Else it will end up being very oily. To make sure you are able to handle it well, you can dust it with little flour.
Preeti's version of Cholafali
Ingredients
Besan / Chana dal flour / Gram Flour - 1 cup
Urad dal flour - 1/2 cup
Oil - 1 tsp
Red chilli powder - 1 tsp
Cooking soda - a pinch
Normal salt & Black salt to taste
How to make cholafali
Boil 1/2 cup of water and add oil, salt and soda into it.
Take the flours in a bowl, when water gets warm, slowly add to the flour and knead a dough. Keep aside for 15 minutes.
Make small balls of dough and roll out very thin rotis of it.
Cut it into thin strips. Deep fry in oil on medium flame.
Sprinkle red chilli powder and black salt on it. Store it in a airtight container.
Serve it with mint chutney.
Even though in between the process we felt we got struck with the recipe, we managed to get it done very well. I mostly think of making half the measurement that's given. This was the first time I felt I should make the entire measurement given, knowing and seeing how well it had been in Lataji's pictures. Anyway I was so happy that Konda loved this so much that she has been taking this for her snacks daily.
Everybody at home, knows that I am into my ICC experiments when I make such elaborate preparations. They were curious to know which state I was doing this time. There was even expressions that said why should I want to try such hard and unknown dishes. Well I guess after tasting such a tasty dish, I am sure they will not complain again.
Plus even though we got so much of it, it's completed now. This is surely something that you must try. Though I know this needs practice over years.
ANU says
awesome recipe...dear...looks like quite a big process.
Mélange says
Many thanks srivalli.I have given the link.Hope you have enjoyed making.Lots of effort from you !Great work .
divya says
ohh...so mouth watering...delish..thx for different recipe:-)
Priya (Yallapantula) Mitharwal says
wow, that looks amazing. I will try, but doubt I can participate with lot of activities going around. Sorry about it.
vaishali sabnani says
Valli...even I made it in two batches:))...but puffed or non puffed they taste awsum.Thnx for the amazing challenge,has left some wonderful memories:)
Priya says
Super crispy and quite addictive cholafali..we truly enjoyed it..
lata raja says
Agree with you valli, the dough turned very stiff when i tried it at home too. Then again referring to many recipes for the Mathias and such i derived that I may add little more water...so much as we might for regular puris. That makes the pounding easy and also puffs well.
And again in agreement with Vaishali's comment, puffed or not they turn out tasty.
My friend has suggested to replace the puris in our bhel puri recipe with these...which I did and the snack was truly awesome.
Kavi... says
Oh, I found the link! 😀 I wasn't sure where to find that! 😀 Beautiful post Sri! Just linked mine too!
Hari Chandana says
Looks perfect.. yummy 🙂
Harini says
Good one Valli. I just linked my post here. looking forward to this month's challenge and also the blogging marathon!