Kara Sev / Karapusa

Kara Sev or Karam pusa is a fried Indian snack with Chickpea flour and Rice flour as the main ingredients. Kara sev can be savored as a snack or for topping in any type of chat or bhel puri. To make things simple, you can even  have this spicy and crunchy sev with a cup of yoghurt seasoned with chat masala.  There are a couple of  irresistible Indian snacks like sev, muruku, janthikalu, ribbon pakoda etc made with a Murukku/Chakli Press/Janthikalu Gottam by just varying the plates as shown in the photograph. For this sev recipe, I used the plate with the smallest holes. With this Muruku press, you can make  lots of different varieties of Indian snacks by just varying the plates (disks with holes).
All you need to do is prepare dough, fit an appropriate plate, fill the murukku press with dough,  and squeeze  in hot oil on medium flame in concentric circles. Thats it !!!

Ingredients:

• Chickpea flour - 1.5 cups
• Rice flour - 1/2 cup
• Red Chilli powder - 1 tsp (adjust acc to chilli spice)
• Warm Oil / Ghee / Butter - 1 tbsp
• Powdered Ajwain / Vaamu - 1 tsp
• Salt to taste
• Water to knead for dough

Procedure:

Grind the Ajwain / Vaamu into very fine powder. As the holes in the disk are very small, its important to grind ajwain into fine powder.

In a mixing bowl add gram flour, rice flour, salt, chilli pwd,  warm ghee /oil and ajwain powder and combine well. Slowly add water little by little to make a soft pilable dough, just soft enough that it is pressed through easily with the janthikalu/Chakli  press. Test the dough for salt before frying.

Heat a heavy bottomed vessel with oil for deep frying. Attach the disc with the smallest holes in the Muruku press and fill it with dough.  The traditional Chakli press ones are heavy and need to be pressed little hard. Now a days you get light weight ones which are pressed by a screw like mechanism by rotating it making it easier and lighter.

Murukku press / Janthikalu gottam with discs

Test the oil for frying. When you drop a piece of flour, your oil is ready for frying if it rises up and floats. Please keep in mind that during the entire process, the flame should be in medium and the oil shouldn't be piping hot. Now press the Janthikalu Gottam in circular motion forming concentric circles.
When the sev turns into golden color, turn over gently to the other side and let it also cook evenly.

Use a slotted ladle to remove onto an absorbent paper and cool. Repeat the same process till the rest of the dough is done.

Cool completely and  store in an air tight container.