Thattu vadai or Thattai are crisp fried rice crackers from Tamil Nadu cuisine. These are eaten as a snack with tea and is mostly made during festivals like Diwali & Krishna Jayanthi.

Recipe Snapshot

  • Prep time: 5 minutes
  • Cook time: 25 minutes
  • Total time: 30 minutes
  • Yield: 15 · 15 thattai
  • Category: Snack
  • Cuisine: South Indian

Ingredients

  • 1½ teaspoon urad dal (or 1½ tbsp peanuts)
  • 1 cup rice flour
  • 1 tablespoon butter ((unsalted))
  • 2 tablespoon fried gram (or roasted gram or pottukadalai)
  • 1 tablespoon chana dal (or bengal gram (soaked for 1 hour))
  • 1 tablespoon sesame seeds ((crushed, optional, use fresh))
  • ½ teaspoon red chilli powder ((use 1 tsp for spicy))
  • ¼ teaspoon asafoetida ((hing))
  • ½ teaspoon Salt ((adjust to taste))
  • 1 sprig curry leaves (chopped finely)
  • Water as needed
  • Oil for deep frying as needed

Method

Preparation

  1. Wash and soak chana dal for 1 hour. Drain and set aside.
  2. Dry roast urad dal or peanuts until lightly golden and cool them. If using peanuts, remove the skin.
  3. Add urad dal to a blender jar along with fried gram. Make a fine powder. If using peanuts, then powder fried gram very fine, then add skinned peanuts and make a coarse powder. You can also powder sesame seeds.

Make Dough

  1. To a mixing bowl, add rice flour, urad dal & fried gram powder, red chili powder, hing, salt, sesame seeds & chopped curry leaves.
  2. Drain the soaked chana dal and add it to the bowl.
  3. Also add soft butter & mix all of them well to incorporate the butter.
  4. Pour little water and begin to mix everything to make thattai dough.
  5. Add more water as needed and make the dough. Dough has to be non sticky, stiff and smooth.
  6. Too moist dough will make your thattai greasy as the excess moisture will soak up oil.
  7. Next too little moisture in the dough will make the thattai crack a lot while spreading the dough and make them hard.
  8. Taste the dough and add more salt if required. Divide the dough to 14 to 16 balls. Keep them covered.

How to Make Thattai

  1. Heat oil on a medium flame in a wide kadai.
  2. Spread a dry cloth, grease your fingers. Place a ball on the cloth or greased sheet.
  3. Begin to spread them moderately thin. Very thin thattai will break when you remove from the cloth. Very thick ones will not turn crisp.
  4. If the edges begin to crack then join them together. Make as many thattai as possible till the oil heats up.
  5. Check if the oil is hot by dropping a tiny flat piece of dough. It should rise and not sink.
  6. Transfer one thattai at one time to the hot oil.
  7. You can fry more than one thattai at one time if there is space in your kadai. But do not crowd them as they will not fry properly.
  8. Make sure the flame is set to medium high. Low flame will make them oily and high flame will brown them.
  9. Flip them when fried on one side. Flip as needed to both the sides and fry until evenly golden & crisp.
  10. When they are fried fully, bubbles will begin to reduce in the oil. Remove them to a cooling rack or colander. Repeat frying them in batches.
  11. When they cool down, transfer them immediately to a tight air tight container.
  12. Serve thattai as a snack. They keep good for about 2 weeks if fried in fresh oil.

Kiyaan Singh’s Kitchen Note

Keep this recipe as a working base: cook once as written, then adjust spice, texture, and serving style for your own table.