Make Sandige While The Sun Shines

Isn’t that an awesome headline?

It struck me while I was making sandige while the sun shone. :P Ok pardon my lameness, I’m very happy because we just made sandige. It’s something that always fills me with glee!

When I was a school-going child, summer holidays meant it was time to wake up early and put sandige. (I say “put” sandige and not “make” sandige because in Kannada, it is sandige “haakodu.” Not sandige “maadodu.”)

My paati would do the initial setting up (which is actually “making” the sandige with all the ingredients), and then my mom, sister, my friends and I would go to the sunniest terrace and put sandige. It happened just once a year and the novelty of it excited all of us.

First of all, let me tell you what sandige is.

Sandige
(san-di-gay   |   sʌn – dɪ – geɪ) 

noun
plural: sandige

1. a condiment usually made from rice or puffed rice (aralu puri) or tapioca pearls/sabo (sabakki/sabudana). To be fried and consumed, usually as an accompaniment with rice, rasam and sambar. Tastes heavenly with curd rice too.

And here is how you pronounce it.

I’m going to give you a tutorial to make aralu sandige. It is just one of the few forms of sandige, perhaps the tastiest, only if made right. Many people make it, but it usually becomes too hard / too spicy / too horrible. So here’s the right way of going about it. My mom’s recipe can’t go wrong, unless you really have no clue able what you’re doing!

How to make Aralu Sandige

Step 1: Buy aralu puri

This is aralu puri. Around 10 litres of aralu puri is good to make your sandige last a few months (depending on how often you eat it). Don’t eat it too often because you have to fry it in oil to consume it.

Step 2: Separate the batta from the aralu puri

Aralu puri usually has a lot of batta in it. Batta is basically unpuffed rice. It is brown, sharp and inedible. It takes around 4-5 hours for three people to separate batta from puri (10 litres), one by one. Try to buy aralu puri that has already been cleaned to save you some back-breaking labour.

Step 3: Gather all ingredients

I’ve listed the ingredients you require for 10 litres.

• 10 litres cleaned aralu puri
• 100 g green chilly
• 1 handful of kothamri (coriander)
• 100 g overnight soaked and cooked sabakki (sabudana / sago) (This is used mainly to bind the loose ingredients together)
• Salt to taste
• One big lemon (Optional)

You’ll need two big tubs/vessels. One to soak the aralu puri in water and one to mix all ingredients.

Step 4: Dip aralu puri in water

In this step, you are cleaning the puri and also soaking it. You have to take it out of the water immediately (within five seconds) so that it doesn’t get too wet. So don’t put an entire 10 litre pile into a big vessel of water. The puri will get shrink and get ruined. Do it bit by bit.

Step 5: To the wet aralu puri, add all other ingredients

• Chop chillies and coriander finely. You could even grind them.
• The sabakki has to be soaked the previous night and boiled in the morning, so that it is soft and slightly sticky. It is an ingredient that holds the otherwise loose aralu puri together.
• One option is to squeeze a lemon into the mix so that it doesn’t get too sticky.
• Taste the mix and see if it suits your taste buds. It usually tastes E.P.I.C.

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Step 6: Gather everything you need to put sandige on the terrace

You’ll need

• The sandige mix
• A circular mould to put the sandige with. The lid of a pickle jar will do. Has to be around the size of your palm and flattish
• A bowl of buttermilk, to dip your hand and the mould in
• Plastic sheets to put the sandige on. Even a fresh panchey / veshti / dhoti will work.
• Some rocks to use as paperweight to hold the sheets down.
• A sunny terrace

You’ll never find non-sleepy faces while putting sandige. It’s an early Sunday morning!

Step 7: Start putting the sandige

This is the most fun part of putting sandige. Pick up some aralu puri that you mixed, put it in the mould so that it is flat and tap it on the sheet. When it falls down in that exact same shape and stays together, it is just so gratifying! Check this.

Step 8: Remember to eat some as you’re making it

I think sandige tastes best best when you’re putting it. It’s better than when you fry it and eat it. It is also healthier! I love it like this.

Step 9: Leave it on the terrace to dry

Once you’re done putting sandige in neat lines, leave it out for the rest of the day to dry. The top layer will dry first, while the underside will be wet. Once the top portion is sufficiently dry (might take a whole day), turn it upside down and let the other side dry.

Put it out on the terrace everyday for around a week to dry it thoroughly. Bring it back inside every evening. You don’t want to leave it out all night and let all sorts of insects eat it.

It must dry completely before you “store it in a cool dry place.” If it is wet, it might catch fungus and rot. So check it properly after a week before you store it.

Step 10: Fry it, eat it and enjoy it

Next time you’re eating rasam rice, sambar rice, curd rice or bisibelebath, bring out the sandige, fry it and eat it.

To fry it you have to dip it in boiling oil for hardly ten seconds. the hard dried up sandige fluffs up when you fry it. It becomes gorgeously crunchy! It goes amazingly well with sambar rice or bisibelebath.

Oh I’m craving for some right now.

Let me go make me some sandige.

Meanwhile, you go make some sandige while the sun shines!

How to make epic chakkli like my mom

As you may all know, today is Gokulashtami / Krishna Jayanti. It’s the grandest festival in my house and we all love it; “we” being my neighbours, my friends, cousins, colleagues, random strangers who visit the house during the festival, etc. I doubt the excitement is because Krishna was born. I mean, it is, to an extent. But a lot more excitement is because of all the thindi. My mom makes chakkli, kodbale, muchchoray, tengol, kadlekai mithai, kobri mithai, kadlekai unde, puri unde, rave unde, besan laadu, chigli and so many other thindi items with weird names. She makes this every year without fail and in HUGE quantities.

Krishna overdose

We give all our neighbours, friends and colleagues the thindies on the day of Gokulashtami. And it’s not just anyone making the thindi. It’s my mom and her best friend, Prema aunty. They’re out-and-out pros! Anyone who smells the chakkli-making immediately pops into my house for a bite. Uttara, who hadn’t come home for some six months (although she lives next door) came home yesterday, secretly broke her fast and ate a piece of chakkli. Such is the effect of the chakkli frying smell.

Crunchy chakklies

This year, I thought I’ll help my mom out a bit. I decided to make chakkli. And I decided to write the recipe, just for fun. The mess around the house, the atta flying all over the kitchen, boxes of thindi on the dining table, the aroma of elakki, sugar, ginger, and the spicy warmth of kodbaley and tengol really added to my festive spirit.

So here’s how you go about making chakkli.

1. Ask your mom if you can help. She might usually turn you away because you’re no good. But this year, Prema aunty can’t make it because she has baby-sitting duties. So my mom gladly obliged.

2. Watch and learn. My mom works fast and she’s not the most patient person in the world. If you don’t get it right ten times, she’s gonna ask you to go away. So learn quick.

The mould and shaping plates you need to make chakkli and other confectionaries

3. You need akki (rice), uddin bele (black gram) in a 4:1 proportion. Wash them, dry them, roast them and take them to the guy who makes it aa powder. Flour mill guy. “Bees kondu banni,” says my mom.

The beesing guy

4. After that, add salt to taste, heat some oil and add that too.

Before kneading

5. Add water, some hing, and knead it.

While kneading

6. You need to smack it hard before you put it in the mould and squeeze it. You gotta smack it like you mean it. Don’t do it half-heartedly because otherwise, the chakkli will break while you’re squeezing it.

7. After that, slowly squeeze it into the chakkli shape. Make the hole in the centre big so that your chakkli looks big. (Tip: Avoid making the circular shape while squeezing. Squeeze out a straight line first and then make the shape with your fingers. The dough is delicate, so be careful.)

8. Slowly put the uncooked chakkli into pre-heated oil and let it fry until you get the desired colour.

9. Don’t eat it until you give it to Krishna for pooja. (You can skip this step if you believe that God resides in you.) I had a conversation with my mom regarding this and it went like this.

Me: Why do we make thindi for Gokulashtami?

Mom: Because Krishna was a thindi potha. Haven’t you heard all songs go, “I’ll give you that, come here. I’ll give you this, come here.”

Me: So he accepted a lot of bribes? Yeah, I think I’ve heard that. Krishna was a manipulative person and he accepted bribes. He was corrupt. Blah blah blah.

Mom: Before you say anything else, know that Krishna resides in you. So, everything you’re calling him, you are those things too.

Later…

Mom catches me eating all the thindies, bit by bit.

Mom: Swathi! You’re not supposed to eat it you mental girl!

Me: But the Krishna in me was hungry and needed the food. He is tempted easily and he couldn’t control himself.

Mom: Sighhhh

#Sorry

Epic chakklies in the making

11. Anyway, after the pooja, you’re done! Eat it. Devour it. Try and share it.

All the thindies

I love how yesterday went. My mum said, apparently when Krishna was born, it rained heavily with no prior warning. That’s exactly what happened yesterday. It poured in the afternoon on a REALLY hot day.

And I also went and gave some cows a few bananas.

Also, Nuvena surprised me today by turning up outside my house after a visit to Iskon.

It was such a happy, productive, festive and Krishna-ish day! :)

I hope many more youngsters like me don’t dis festivals just because religion has a role to play in it, and it’s “cool” to be agnostic or atheist or whatever. Just go with the flow, take what comes at you with an open mind, celebrate the festival without causing anyone harm and be happy!

Happy Gokulashtami! :)