Thursday, April 9, 2015

Omankuzal.

Well I think that's the most appropriate name for the snack I made this afternoon. It was a November rainy chilly day @ Boston..Acton to be precise. As I sat watching/listening to the pitter patter of the rain I suddenly felt a craving for those crispy pakoda or bajji...when chked the pantry, I saw the Omam water, so got a brainwave to make Omapodi for the snack time. That's an easy peasy stuff which I have made in a jiffy without much effort in the past, many times..but I was wrong ..this time..well, everything was fine up to the making of the dough..all set. Oil in the pan got heated nicely, and I filled the dough in the iron 'omapodi achu'..and pressed it holding it above the heated oil like many times before..ugh??..nothing happened..the dough never got squeezed out..oh..ok..may be it's too tight..I removed it, and added some more water to soften it.. filled it again, and pressss..Now what??..It started coming out from the top...unbelievable..never in my 30 yrs of cooking life such thing happened before..WHAT??..I chked the holes of the press, all neat..then I noticed it was too tiny..figured it out..this is beyond my physical power. You need to apply huge pressure to squeeze the dough out thru that tiny holes..the texture of the dough I first made was sure fine..well, now what??..quickly revised the situation and decided to change the shape..yes I changed the 'achu' to thenkozal, and then things were fine. Finished the whole stuff in less than an hr..so now I have beautifully fried, golden brown, omapodi tasting thenkozal :)
Hence I decided to name it omankozal..