Who does not enjoy snacking?  Having a spicy snack with a hot cup of tea in the evening is a craving we all go through.  However, this craving usually comes at a cost – ‘guilt’ of eating outside food.  We are always skeptical of the way the food is prepared, the oil used for frying, the cleanliness and not to forget the preservatives.

We are savoury snack lovers. When I say we, I include my 4 year old son too. This gives me all the more reasons to make all the snacks at home to ensure that we don’t end up eating packaged food.

Almost every fortnight I prepare tea time snacks in bulk which I can store for a couple of weeks. My post today is one such recipe which is a hot favourite tea time snack in my house.

So here I am sharing the recipe for the homemade OVEN ROASTED POHA MIXTURE.  Hope to tempt you all to make these at home!

INGREDIENTS:

Flattened Rice / Poha / Avalakki – Paper Thin variety – about 2 to 3 large cups

*You can use as much or as little poha as needed.

For tempering:

Oil – 8 tbsp

Mustard seeds – 2 tbsp

Urad dal – 2 tbsp

Curry leaves – few – chopped finely

Green chillies – 8 to 10

Garlic – 1

Dry red chillies – 1 or 2

Peanuts / Groundnuts – 1 cup

Fried Gram dal / Putaani / Roasted channa dal – 1/2 cup

Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp

Asafoetida – 1/2 tsp

Salt – as per taste

Powder to mix at the end:

Roasted Channa dal/ Fried gram dal / putani – 3 tbsp

Sugar – 2 to 3 tsp

Grind the above mentioned fried gram dal and sugar into fine powder. You can make it in larger quantity and store it in an air tight container.

METHOD:

Preheat the oven at 250°F.

Spread the Poha / avalakki / flattened rice on a baking tray. Roast in the oven for anywhere between 12-15 minutes. Make sure to remove the try and mix gently every 4-5 minutes.

If you are trying this recipe for the first time, I would suggest you keep a close eye so that it gets roasted to the optimum level. Once you are used to the time taken and the oven’s temperature you will be a pro soon 🙂

Once the poha is roasted well, prepare the tempering using the ingredients mentioned under the ‘For tempering’ section.

In a large mixing bowl, add the roasted poha and the tempering.

Gently mix them well, making sure the poha does not break. Mixing gently is very important to keep the look and texture of the mixture !

Once the poha gets mixed well with the tempering, check for salt and add if needed.

Now add the Fried gram dal and sugar mixture. Mix well but gently 🙂

The home made evening munchie is ready for hogging 🙂

Oven fried poha mixture ready to be served 🙂