Moving on, Adai is a type of spicy savory crepe that originates from south Indian cuisine. One of the nicest things about adai, is the addition of three different types of lentils in it. It is a great way to get some protein in a vegetarian diet. In the past I have played around with using quinoa and oats and barley in adai successfully.
This time I wanted to try and make adai minus the rice and substituting it with cracked wheat and oats. For those of you who are not able to get brown rice, this is a great way to make the traditional adai a bit more healthy. This adai turned out fabulously, I was a little worried at first about not having any rice in it, but from the softness, taste and texture angles the rice was not missed at all :-)
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Ingredients and Method to make Cracked wheat and oat adai
1 cup cracked wheat
1/2 cup split yellow pigeon peas (tur dhal)
1/2 cup split yellow chick pea lentil (chana dhal)
1/2 cup split black gram lentil (udad dhal)
1 cup rolled oats
1 inch piece ginger
5 Thai or Indian variety green chilies (or according to taste)
7 dry red chilies (or according to taste)
salt to taste
1/2 tsp asafoetida powder (hing)
a little sesame oil (or any other flavorless oil ) to shallow fry the adai
Place the first five ingredients in a large container. Add water to it, swirl with your hand a few times and drain water. Fill with fresh water and soak all the five ingredients in sufficient water for two hours.
Grind in batches along with ginger, green chilies and red chilies to make a thick batter adding water as required. The lentils/ grains need not be ground until completely fine, they only need to ground until they feel a little like coarse, thick semolina texture.
To the batter, add salt to taste, hing and mix well.
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Heat a heavy flat pan/ tawa/ griddle, you know the tawa is ready when a few drops of water splashed on it makes the water dance and pearl up. Pour a ladle of this batter on the center of the tawa and quickly spread into as thin or thick circle as you like. Thinner ones are crisper than thicker ones. Pour a few drops of sesame oil around the edges of the spread out batter, when the lower side gets to a golden brownish color, flip over and cook the other side until it get a few brownish spots on it.
Remove and serve hot with a chutney podi like this flax chutney powder or molaga podi, any chutney or avial or jaggery/ honey.
