Spice powder to pan fry veggies - Phodi pitti recipe

Want to make mundane veggies taste amazing? Pan fry them. But my Mil & her mom had a secret ingredient to make boring veggies taste super duper amazing. It is a powder used to coat veggies with to pan fry them. Makes any veggie taste awesome. We used them daily & call it phodi pitti in Konkani. Take a look at the delicious phodis I make using it almost every day. Many more yummm phodis I make using it. All about them on my Instagram page.

All you have to do is add salt to veggies. Allow them to rest for 2-3 minutes so that they take up salt. Coat them with this powder & pan fry them using oil.

Mil's No.1 recipe - infact her mom's recipe for this phodi pitti is one of my favourite. A reason why she & I both made phodis everyday. She was the phodi queen & then I took over the craze. We pan fry atleast one type of veggie almost everyday for lunch/dinner with this phodi pitti - powder used to coat & pan fry veggies. Phodis were extra deliciousss when made with that spice powder.

This spice powder makes anyyy mundane, boring veggie taste deliciousssss. Slightly sweet veggies like pumpkin, sweet potatoes, bread fruit taste absolutely amazing with the contrasting spice from the spice powder.

Takes a littleeee time & effort to make but lasts for 2 years if made right, stored right. My Mil's mom made this for us until she was 90!! She's now 95. All we had to do was chop veggies, add salt, let it sit aside for a minute. By then the frying pan would be hot, dip sliced veggies in phodi pitti, coat it well with the powder on both sides, fry well on both sides with oil. Enjoy yummmm phodis with lunch/dinner.

Our absolute favourite is batate phodi with it. Potatoes pan fried.🤤 Next in line is capsicum pan fried, next sweet potatoes, nendran bananas, bread fruit for me, next eggplants, matti gulla (brinjal from Udupi), pumpkin, bitter gourd, fresh bamboo shoots, pickled bamboo shoots, ivy gourd, raw banana, ridge gourd, yam, chayote, kantola, colocasia tuber. Like I said every possible veggie can be pan fried coating it with this powder & I promise will taste super duper amazing.

Make a tiny batch to make little of this powder super quick. Then you too can enjoy deliciousss phodis that you can make in no time for lunch & dinner.

P.S: you can pan fry veggies like everybody else with semolina + salt + red chilli powder + turmeric + asafoetida. But you gotta try pan frying veggies with this powder to know what I mean. 🤗

Ingredients:

2 cups rice grains - dosa rice preferably
20 dried red chillies
3/4 cup urad dal
3/4 cup coriander seeds
1/2 cup cumin seeds
Salt to taste

Preparation method:

1. Dry roast dried red chillies for few minutes until they crisp up. Dry roast them. Let them cool down.

2. Dry roast rice grains for few minutes so that they powder easily. Let them cool down too.

3. Dry roast cumin seeds for few minutes or until they spurt out. Transfer them onto a plate, they have to cool down too.

4. Dry roast urad dal until they start to just brown. We are frying them so that they powder well & powder easily. Transfer them onto another plate & let them come to room temperature.

5. Dry roast coriander seeds until they start popping. Transfer them onto a plate to cool down.

6. Once they all cool down properly powder them all in a mixie.

7. Powder them all separately. Powder everything fine, except rice grains. Keep rice grains tiny in size, size of wheat semolina (sooji rava) or little bigger than them. Your choice. The size of rice rava will determine how your phodis taste & determines their texture.

Smaller rice rava will make lots of this spicy powder to stick to your veggies. Little bigger rice rava will give you little crunchy textured phodis. Both ways they taste yum. But we all always preferred the crunchy textured phodis with just a little bigger sized rice rava.

8. Mix all powdered ingredients well, let them cool down completely. Add salt to them if needed. Store them in air tight containers.

9. While you make phodi transfer a little powder into a bowl. Add salt if needed to them. Coat salted veggies of your choice with the powder, pan fry them and enjoy!

Tags: Today's recipe, phodi, pan fried, phodis