Little Millet Fryums | Saamai ilai Vadagam

Let the sun dehydrate healthy millets to provide us healthy fryums for this summer ! This “Little Millet Fryums” is my own trial by replacing rice flour with millet flour in traditional leaf vadaam recipe. I googled and confirmed that I have not reinvented the wheel. Yess! I am the first to publish this millet recipe and am much glad for it 🙂

I have tried several varieties of millet vadaams replacing raw rice and after many flops, here is a fool-proof recipe! This fryums will be big hit among kids. Adults are no exceptions. Try this and I am sure you will love it. I have another successful “Varagu Vadaam” recipe which I will try to post sooner.

In childhood, we go crazy on big pappads sold at exhibitions. Just sprinkle some chillie powder on this mini millet pappad and reminisce your bygone exhibition memories 🙂

Preparation

1.Wash the millet twice and separate the stones(Scroll for Tips). Soak it in water for 2 hours.2.Drain the water and add soaked millet to a mixie jar. Along with rock salt, grind it well with lil water.3.The consistency should be like dosa batter. Add cumin seeds and mix well. In a oil-greased banana leaf, pour a small ladle of batter and make small dosa-like circle.4.Pour ample water in idli pot, keep steamer or idli plate, close the lid and switch on the stove. Once steam starts coming out, Place the banana leaf(hold both sides else shape will be altered) and close the lid. Let the flame be high. Start making next dosa in another banana leaf. Once done, open the lid and it would have been cooked.5.Take out the banana leaf and place the leaf with freshly drawn dosa into idli pot. Take cooked dosa/vadaam and place it in a wide plate and start drawing next dosa. Repeat this until the batter is over. Keep the plates in hot sun for 2 days.6.Once dried completely, fry vadaam in hot oil and check. It should fry evenly and it should not stick to the teeth while eating. If yes, store the vadaams in air-tight containers and use it whenever required.Crispy, Tasty & Healthy Homemade Millet vadaams are ready !

Tips/Tricks

• Millets might have tiny sand and stones. Take water immersed millets in a vessel. Hold one end of the vessel rim and slightly lift up. While you shake the vessel to and fro using one hand, gather the millets in the other palm and transfer to another vessel in batches. In this way, the sand settles in the bottom to discard easily. Repeat this process twice or thrice until no sand settles down.
• Greasing oil in banana leaf before making first one is enough to make 25 vadaams.
• Check the water in idli pot after 10+ vadaams and pour more if required. If the water is less, steam will be less and vadaams won’t be cooked properly.
• Vadaams will cook in less than a minute. By the time you peel out the cooked one and make fresh one, the one in the idli pot would have been cooked.
• Batter should not be watery. While making circles, it should not be transparent to see the banana leaf through the batter. In such case, vadaams will break while drying.
• For spicy version, you shall add red/green chillies while grinding the batter.