Friday, July 6, 2007

Potato Wafers

Summer time in India is time for ladies to prepare their year long stock of pickles and walawan.. Walawan is the category of things made which need to be sun dried. I remember mom making potato wafers, different papads and kurdais during summer time.. Our job as kids used to be to sit on the terrace to keep a watch on the birds that try feasting on these delicacies when they are left for drying :D Little did mom realise that we used to be the real birds feasting on them :) Especially the kurdais made from wheat flour coz they tasted awesome when half dry.. Mom used to have different prepataion for fasting food and for normal days as wells! Fasting preparations usually consisted of potato wafers, potato kees, sabudana papad and subudana babata kurdai/chakli.. Wafers used to be my favourite and I decided to try some last week as I had a bag of potatoes lying around. So here's one of my favourite fasting food- Potato Wafers- for "W of Indian Vegetables." I am glad I made these last week as I really enjoyed eating these yesterday during my Thursday fast :) Thats the advantage of fasting.. lots of yummy foods :D

Making Potato wafers is a bit lengthy process.. But once well prepared and dried, these can be stored for about year! So its just worth the efforts taken. Instead of deep frying in oil (the traditional way), these can be sprayed and baked in microwave as well! Take care while drying them.. If they are stored without proper drying, they can be spoilt by fungus.. So better check that the weather is gonna be sunny for the next 5-6 days before taking up this task ;)

Potato Wafers



Preparation time:

4-5 days

Makes:

Short snack for 1

What you need:

3 medium sized Potatoes (preferably flat and long)
Salt
Oil to fry
Red chilli powder
Hardware- Mandoline

How to proceed:

1) Peel potatoes and make chips using the wavy side of mandoline, or the plain one if you like it plain.. My opinion-the wavy ones look n feel good :D
2) Boil these in water with 1-2 tsp Oil for 4-5 mins
3) Now drain off water and hold the chips under cold water
4) Place the chips separately on a plastic sheet and dry in sunn for 4-5 days, flipping sides twice a day
5) When they are totally dry, store in an air tight container
6) Deep fry in oil, drain excess oil on kitchen towels and sprinkle with red chilli powder and salt or eat plain

2 comments:

Suganya said...

Looks like store-bought. Lovely!

Nupur said...

I remember the summer-time walawan too :) being recruited to turn papads over, to bring in the stuff inside hurriedly if clouds appreared in the sky!
Your wafers look picture perfect...very impressive, Aditi!