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Thattai is an authentic and traditional SouthIndian crispy snack. We make thattai for many festivals like Krishna Jayanthi or even for a regular evening snack. This can be with just Rice flour and Urad dal flour well within 30 minutes.

Tips for making Thattai:

1. Rice Flour :

Homemade Rice flour is the most recommended option. Home made rice flour will yield better texture and taste than store bought.
We can use store bought plain rice flour for making thattai. We can also use idiappam or kozhukattai flour too.
Being homemade or store bought, the rice has to be roasted till warm. The consistency is called "Kolamavu padham" in tamil. If you take a pinch of rice flour and try to draw a line or rangoli, you should be able to do. If that is achieved then we can stop roasting rice flour.

2. Urad Dal Flour:

Store bought urad dal flour cannot be used for thattai or any bakshanam. Store bought urad dal flour is not roasted flour. So will not work properly
To prepare urad dal flour, dry roast urad dal till it's very hot to handle. We don't need to roast till red/golden color.
Grind urad dal to smooth powder. Sieve the flour twice to get rid off any lumps or coarse flour. We need perfectly smooth flour.
We fried ¼ cup of urad dal but we just need ½ tablespoon of urad dal flour for 1 cup of rice flour. We can't grind very small quantity in mixer grinder so take atleast ¼ cup of urad dal so that we will get a smooth urad dal flour.
Store the rest of the urad flour in an air-tight container and use it whenever you are planning to some snacks like thenkuzhal, seedai, thattai etc

3. Butter:

For 1 cup of rice flour, we can use 1 tablespoon of butter. Butter should be soften at room temperature. Do not use chilled butter.
We can also use ghee instead of butter, but ghee gives a dark color to the thattai.
Do not increase the butter quantity as it will make the thattai brittle or soggy sometimes.

4. Crunchy bits

I have used roasted gram to the rice flour to get a nice crunch when we take a bite of thattai.
Instead of roasted gram, we can soak chana dal (Kadala Paruppu) for about 30 mins. Then drain the water and add the soaked dal to the rice flour.
We can also add white sesame seeds to the rice flour.
Also we can finely chop the coconut and add the coconut bits to the rice flour.

5. Dough Consistency:

The thattai dough consistency should be soft and smooth. If the dough is very stiff, when we shape thattai, there will be lots of cracks. So always knead it to smooth dough.
Always keep the dough covered. When you are taking a gooseberry size dough and flattening it to make thattai cover the rest of the dough with a damp cloth or with a lid.
If the dough becomes dry, sprinkle water and knead the dough again.

6. Deep Frying:

Test the hotness of the oil before dropping the shaped thattai in oil. If the oil is not hot enough, then the thattai will absorb more oil.
Drop a pinch of dough and check if the dough raises immediately, then the oil is ready.
Add 2-3 thattai in one batch. If you are deep frying in a broad heavy bottomed pan with more oil then you can add 4-5.
Do not over crowd the thattai in oil. Give them space to get fried.
Deep fry in low flame till its golden brown on both the sides and the bubbles ceases completely.

7. Storing

Allow the fried thattai to cool off completely.
Also place the fried thattai in an air-tight container to have longer shelf life.

Recipe Card to make Thattai

INSTRUCTIONS WITH STEP BY STEP PICTURES:

PREPARING URAD DAL FLOUR

Dry roast urad dal till the dal is hot. If we touch the dal, the dal should be fry hot to handle. That is the right stage to swtich off the flame. We don't need to fry dal till it changes color.

Take the roasted urad dal in a mixer. Grind it to smooth powder.

Add the urad dal flour in a sieve. Sieve thorougly to get rid of any lumps or coarse flour. Set this urad dal flour aside.

DRY ROASTING RICE FLOUR

Add 1 cup of rice flour in a heavy bottomed pan. Dry roast rice flour till its warm. If you take a pinch of rice flour you should be able to draw a line. Thats the right consistency.

DOUGH PREPARATION

Take a pan, add rice flour, ½ tablespoon of ground urad dal flour, salt, red chilli powder, hing, curry leaves, roasted gram, butter and mix it well.

Sprinkle water and mix all these ingredients to make it a thick dough.

MAKING OF THATTAI

Take a zipper paper, spread oil in the paper, make small ball of the flour, and keep it in paper. Grease the palm with oil and press the ball to flatten it. Make the patties really thin.

We can also use a bowl and press the dough ball to make a thin equal size thattai.

Prick each thattai with a fork or a tooth pick in many places. Pricking makes the oil penetrates to the inner portion of the thattai and cooks the inner portion well. If the inner portion of thattai is now cooked, then the thattai will be chewy. Also if you miss the pricking, then sometimes, the thattai will become like a poori. So pricking is an important step.

DEEP FRYING PROCESS

Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Slowly turn the zipper over your palm. The greased plastic will enable flattened thattai to slip on your hands easily. Gently drop 2-3 flattened thattai in oil.

Keep the flame low and allow the thattai to get fried. Turn them to cook evenly until golden yellow/ deep brown. Allow the thattai to cook till all the bubbles ceases and also keep the flame in medium till the thattai is cooked completely. Drop them on a paper towel to drain excess oil. Once cooled, store them in an air tight container.

SERVING TIME

The delicious Thattai is ready for neivedhyam and for serving.

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Thattai

Tips for making Thattai:

1. Rice Flour :

2. Urad Dal Flour:

3. Butter:

4. Crunchy bits

5. Dough Consistency:

6. Deep Frying:

7. Storing

Recipe Card to make Thattai

Thattai Recipe | How to make Thattai

Equipments Needed

Ingredients

Instructions

Preparing Urad Dal Flour

Dry Roasting Rice Flour

Dough Preparation

Making of Thattai

Deep Frying Process

Serving Time

Video

Notes

Nutritional Info