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Friday, October 18, 2019

South Indian Mixture / Chow Chow

This mixture -  a melange of various flavored / textured / sized sevs (chickpea flour based snack), fried thick poha (flattened rice), fried chana dal (Bengal Gram), boondi along with a tempering of peanuts, cashews, curry leaves and turmeric makes a great snack for festive occasions like Diwali to share with some one or just to munch on as an afternoon treat. My medley here is influenced by south Indian style spicy mixtures available back home in every nook and corner and these kind of medleys also go by the name 'chow chow' in some parts of Bangalore which literally means a mixture / medley. It brings to mind the popular breakfast combo from the region which is called chow chow bhath for the same reason since it is a medley of savory khara bhath and the sweet kesari bhath. This can be easily customized according to one's taste preferences. Mixture in the first picture doesn't contain boondi or fried chana dal and the second image is of another variety where they were included. If need those 'khatta meetha' mix kind of flavors, add a pinch of citric acid and powdered sugar as needed and also some toasted raisins. It won't remain south Indian hot and spicy mix kind anymore though. I don't recall exactly but when we were kids, I think the store bought kind used to include fried dal moth as well.
 
I am not giving the recipe here since I have already posted recipes for sevs, fried poha aka chivda and boondi. Check my 'Snacks' page if looking for these recipes or any other snacks. I usually have sev, fried chana dal and plain boondi on hand and so making this kind of mixture is not a big deal. If starting from scratch, this recipe does demand some time and patience. There is no hard and fast rules about how much quantity of each variety of fried snacks should go into this mix. Combine varieties of plain and spicy sevs, fried thick variety poha, fried boondi (not the sweet kind), fried chana dal and any extra kind if you prefer in a mixing bowl. Heat 2 or 3 tsp. of oil in  a small pan and fry peanuts and / or cashews and curry leaves. Add turmeric before turning off the stove. Add this to the mixing bowl and toss the bowl well and taste the mixture before adding any seasonings. If you think curry leaves are going to be discarded, wait until the tempering cools down and crush the toasted leaves into bits. No one minds eating the flavorful tiny bits of the leaves. Keep in mind that some of the fried stuff like sev / chana dal are already spicy. Add salt as needed and shake the bowl to combine. Add a bit of chili powder or fried dry red chillies only if the mixture needs to be more spicier.

7 comments:

Amara’s cooking said...

A wonderful tea time snack Suma. The mixture can easily be customised to ones taste. Lovely share.

rajani said...

It has started getting a little chilly here. Looking at that picture, all I can think is that a handful of this mixture and hot cup of masala tea would be heavenly!!

Rafeeda AR said...

I just feel like stretching my hand and taking that bowl of mixture, and just munching on them with some strong adrak wali chai... Super!

Usha said...

If we have different variety of sev on hand, this is so easy to put together. Such recipes are life savers during Diwali preparations. Great one for the this week's theme.

Harini R said...

This is a go-to mixture at my parent's place. The name chow chow is new to me.

Sandhya Ramakrishnan said...

What a beautiful mixture this is and I grew up eating this all the time. My son loves it and would finish the whole batch. I like it as a side to yogurt rice as well. A must snack for Diwali!

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