Uppu Seedai (Salt Seedai) is another important and traditional neivedhyam dish for krishna jayanthi festival. In my childhood days, my mom used to prepare 5-6 batches of dough and me and my sister with my dad had helped my mom in rolling the dough into small balls. My dad has lots of patience and he used to roll it into very small ball and small balls are actually very crunchy than the bigger balls. It is a bit of tiresome process to make uppu seedai but the end result would be very delicious. We used to think why mom is making 5-6 batches but later we could see we have more seedai so that we could enjoy the delicious and crispy seedai atleast for a week.
I know many people who are very scared of doing this uppu seedai. Many of us have a bitter experience in doing uppu seedai as sometimes it may burst while frying in the oil. The steps looks simple, but some points we need to keep it in my mind while preparing the dough to avoid bursting. There are many reasons why it is getting burst in the oil. Please refer my notes for how to Avoid Uppu Seedai(s) from bursting in hot oil.
I know many people who are very scared of doing this uppu seedai. Many of us have a bitter experience in doing uppu seedai as sometimes it may burst while frying in the oil. The steps looks simple, but some points we need to keep it in my mind while preparing the dough to avoid bursting. There are many reasons why it is getting burst in the oil. Please refer my notes for how to Avoid Uppu Seedai(s) from bursting in hot oil.
Preparation and Yield:
Method :
| Preparation time | 30 mins |
| Cooking Time | 1 Hour |
| Yield | 250 gms |
 |
| Uppu Seedai / Salt Seedai |
Ingredients:
| Urdhal powder | 1 measure (example laddle) |
| Homemade Rice Flour | 11 measure (example 11 ladle) |
| Butter | 1 table spoon |
| Gram Dal (optional) | 1 table spoon |
| Grated Coconut | 2 table spoon |
| Salt | To Taste |
| Hing | 1/2 teaspoon |
| Oil | For Frying + 2 tablespoon |
 |
| Uppu Seedai / Salt Seedai |
Method :
- Soak the gram dal(channa dal) in water for 10 minutes.
- Homemade rice flour is the best option for seedai than the store bought rice flour. The ratio of rice flour to urid dal flour is 11:1 (I have used ladle, so for 11 ladles of rice flour, we need to add 1 ladle of urid dal flour. You can use cup, tumbler or even spoon). We need to use the right ratio other wise the seedai will not turn out good. The more uriddal flour, seedai would be dark colour. Lesser urid dal flour results in very light color. So please maintain the ratio. Pass the rice flour and urid dal flour through the sieve atleast twice to make sure they are perfectly smooth. Take a bowl and add the flours along with butter, grated coconut, hing, salt and the soaked and drained gram dal and mix well with your hand so that all are nicely mixed up
- Then sprinkle water little by little and knead them to a smooth and stiff dough. Do not add more water and make the dough sticky. The dough should be stiff. Then grease your fingers and palm with oil and take small quantity of dough and roll it to a tiny ball. Do this for rest of the dough. Allow the seedai dough balls in the newspaper or plastic sheet for atleast 5-10 minutes.
- Heat oil in a pan. Check if the oil is hot enough to raise the seedai immediately by dropping a seedai. When it raises immediately, then our oil is ready. Take the tiny dough balls in batches. Do not overload the oil with more seedai. Drop 20-30 balls at a time and deep fry them till they turn golden brown color and crispy. Remove the crispy seedai from the pan and place it in a paper towel to drain excess oil. Repeat the step for the rest of the seedai balls.
- Now the crispy, crunchy and tasty Uppu Seedai is now ready for neivedhyam or for serving!
 |
| Uppu Seedai / Salt Seedai |
How to avoid the bursting of seedai while frying ?
- Smooth Flour : The rice flour and urdal flour should be very nice and smooth. We need to pass the flours through the sieve atleast twice to get smooth flour. This will prevent breaking of seedai while frying in oil. Sometimes if the flour is wet or if it is not smooth, there may be chances of bursting of seedai while frying in oil which is very dangerous. So we should be cautious while doing seedai.
- Soft Balls: We just need to roll the dough to the soft ball and not a very rigid ball as the air particles inside the dough try to come out while frying and if the ball is very rigid, it may burst in oil.
- Dry Balls: After making small balls, leave it in the newspaper / plate to dry before dropping in oil. The wetness or the moisture in the ball tend to burst.
 |
| Uppu Seedai / Salt Seedai |