Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Sev Tameta - (Tomato & Chickpea flour fritters)

Slacker? Procrastinator? Absent-Minded? What would you brand a person who posts this tantalizing teaser almost two years ago... but doesn't realize that the post providing answers to her puzzle is safely tucked away as a draft in her blogger dashboard? Well, here is the pheonix you all would have never expected to rise out of its ashes - the much awaited, the much guessed about, the minimalist wonder, the sensational - Sev Tameta!!

If you were actually waiting for this post all this time, please accept my heartfelt apologies for imposing this excruciating suspense!Without further ado, here's how you make Sev Tameta
Simple foods... that are simple enough to cook without planning give you inexplicable joy. That's what happened to us during our Lake George trip. We packed a bunch of spicy Indian snacks including the Indian Sev and Gathia. These snacks are made of a spicy chick pea flour dough, pressed out of sev/gathia presses similar to Murukku presses (cookie press) and deep fried. The stuff we carried of course, were store brought.

So we packed these snacks for tea time munchies. As we got used to cooking at the well equipped kitchen at the resort, we realized we had all the ingredients for this famous Gujarati dish - Sev Tameta, which is one of Hubbie's favorites. So we decided to be happy campers and leverage our limited supplies towards lunch.

You can use any kind of sev, gathia or even crisp puris (as used in papdi chaats)... We used a mixture of the kinds we had... Bhavnagri Gathia (Speciality of a region in Gujarat called Bhavnagar) and Spicy Sev pictured below

Sev Tameta
2-3 tbsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
pinch asafetida
1 tsp tumeric powder
1 tsp coriander powder
Heat oil, add mustard seeds. Allow to sputter, then add asafetida, turmeric powder and coriander pow
1 tomato chopped fine
salt to taste splash of water (if required)
Add tomatoes and salt and cook down until the mixture is pulpy. If the tomato is not juicy enough, add a splash of water
2 cups assorted sev/gathiasAdd to mixture and mix. Turn off heat and allow to soak until the sev is tender

You can add more water to this dish if you prefer it watery. The soaking time for the sev depends of its thickness. Serve this with chappatis or theplas. Yum!

2 comments:

Rajesh &Shankari said...

I used to eat this is Mumbai and just loved it..tastes so good especially on a rainy day

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the wonderful recipe for sev tameta. What spices would you put into sev, if you made them at home? I have always felt that the Gujarati sev and ghatia taste the best.
Ravi