Re: Poppadoms
Leeroy Grier
If you only dry the them for about four hours as explained in my poppadom recipe and photos below, your papads will puff up and be deliciously crispy and soft in places when you fry or grill them into poppadoms.
Using this poppadom recipe, you will get excellent results. Frying the papads is by far the most popular way to cook them but you can make lighter and equally as delicious poppadoms by grilling or dry frying them. See Note.
Obviously, poppadoms are not served as a main course, no-one is mad enough to argue for this, and so in the American sense, they cannot be considered as an entree. But what of the European sense of entree, as in the first course of a meal?
Poppadoms, delicious though they undoubtedly are, are notsmaller portions of the main courses. They are also much less substantial than what we would normally expect from a starter. For someone entering a BIR curry house for the first time and inexperienced with the menu (what a journey they are about to embark upon!) eating a poppadom, while a glorious experience, will give no clue as to the dishes ahead. Poppadoms are neither entrees nor starters in either the American or European senses of the words. What, then, are they?
Consider now poppadoms. Unlike starters, they do not require a knife and fork nor to be eaten from a plate. Small bites can be taken whilst engaging in conversation. Yes, it is possible to keep up a discussion during the starters but tucking into a samosa or onion bhaji takes a little more concentration (people tend to look at their food whilst cutting it). In addition, the mouthfuls of food are bigger and require more chewing which impedes the flow of conversation.
Just mix everything together; only the mint and yogurt are necessary, the rest is optional. Quantities are up to you, it all depends on how much you want to make and what flavours you enjoy. If you want to go full BIR experience you can add some green or orange food colouring at the end. Regular plain yogurt is a good substitute to the Greek variety but the taste of thinned down Greek yogurt is closer to that found in restaurants.
Last night I was eating some poppadoms and my cat was pestering me. I decided to let him have a sniff, so he would find that I was not eating meat, and leave me alone. Instead though, he started eating the poppadoms! Does anyone else's cat eat weird things?
I discovered this a couple of years ago when she was pestering me assuming that I had food for her (as all food is for GPs) so I figured 'what the hell' and offered it to her. How was I supposed to know that she'd sniff it and then start taking bites? Now I have to tear a bit off just to shut her up
Your cat isn't the only one who likes popadoms! Our cat (who is the grand age of 15) LOVES popadoms. She also likes Doritos and any other corn or tortillas. Her fav "treat" is sponge cake - she goes mental for a bit, especially if it's home-made. Last week she even ate some carrot cake.
I found him, snout shoved deep into our bag o' compost, snaffling it as quick as he could.....he leapt back in guilt when I called him (rather crossly, I will admit....I had visions of composty dog barf!!) and he had great snarls of it caught in his 'tache.....it was rather funny, atch! Only now, he's taken to unearthing pots when he can...not so amusing when we're at the OH's rather-keen-gardeners-Folks........
I used to have a dog who would finish off my boiled eggs (I didn't like the white). He had strong jaws, but he would delicately hold the shell and scoop out the egg white completely without breaking it. I never figured out how he did it!
The best air fryers are all the rage right now, and once you've invested in a model, next comes plenty of experimentation, trying to cook different foods. Last Saturday, we made a vegetable curry, and as is usual, we wanted to accompany it with poppadoms and / or a naan because, well, it wouldn't be a curry without those classic Indian side dishes, would it?
Keen to try out the air fryer and have some fun with it, we thought we'd air-fry some poppadoms. Rather than purchase the ones that are ready to eat, straight from the bag, we opted for raw poppadoms that need cooking. The "usual" way to cook such poppadoms is to pop them in the microwave for one minute; but clearly, we wanted a challenge before sitting down to tuck in to our Saturday night curry.
We didn't follow a recipe, and the time and temperature settings we used were a (very) wild guess. The results were.. surprising. We'll leave it at that as you continue to scroll down the page to find out what happened.
The normal way to get uncooked poppadoms ready to eat is to sprinkle them with a little water and pop them into the microwave. Or, if you're cooking them in the over, simply drizzle lightly with oil. For this experiment of trying to cook poppadoms in the air fryer, we tried both methods.
3. Check in on the poppadom
We did this every 10-15 seconds. If your air fryer has a viewing window, this will be easy, and it means that no precious heat will escape as a result of opening the drawer.
Overall, though, neither method of air-frying poppadoms achieved results that really satisfied our appetite. They weren't nice to eat, and the texture after cooking was harsh and lumpy. In fact, the process of cooking poppadoms felt more time consuming in the air fryer as a result of only being able to cook one at a time, and having to open and close the drawer at regular intervals.
A surprising tick in the box for me with this method. It works really well and they take between 20-35 seconds per poppadom.
They can be cooked without oil, but I prefer them brushed with oil, this still reduces the amount of oil over frying by about 25%.
The downsides are that they sometimes need flipping, and occasionally they catch in places. They are also not as crisp as frying.
The methods are listed in order of my preferred way of cooking, with the first two being the very best in my opinion!
The calorific value refers to a single portion of 2 fried poppadoms per person... yes, I'm greedy.
Hi, my name is Brian and I'm here to prove that ALL cooking is simple! You will get no gimmicks, no trends, no dietary advice and no life advice here, just great food designed for two, the occasional story or two and a spattering of sarcasm!
Poppadoms are fairly easy to make and you can also put your own flavour-stamp on them if you wish or keep them plaion. I tend to add white pepper, garlic powder and onion powder but I occasionally add a teaspoon or so of cumin seeds.
The right type of flour is crucial: black matpe bean flour (or papad flour) gives the characteristic bubbling over the surface as the dried poppadoms hit the hot fat, as does lentil flour. These are easy to buy in the World Foods aisle of the supermarkets or online.
The thinner you can roll out the dough, the crispier the fried poppadoms will be: a bit under a millimetre gives the best crisp results. I find it easiest using a small plastic rolling pin (meant to be used for fondant icing!) and rolling between two oiled baking mats or sheets or greaseproof.
The drying is essential and it is easier to dry them on the sheet you rolled them on rather than lifting them up. If you just roll, cut and fry without the drying you will get some bubbles on the surface but the poppadoms will remain flaccid rather than crispy.
For drying, you can pop them in a dehydrator overnight or in an oven with the heat set low. They should be firm with a very slight flexibility to them, but it is fine if you dry them until they are brittle.
(1) Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl and add enough water to give a firm dough with no dry bits. Knead for a minute or so until the dough is smooth. Work in a bit more flour if it seems at all sticky or hard to manage.
NB: as there is no gluten in the flour, there is no danger of over-working the dough
Enjoy these delicious poppadoms from India! They increase in size when cooked, just like those in Indian restaurants. They are made with a traditional recipe and can be served as a tasty accompaniment with an Indian meal, or simply relished as a tasty snack.
Poppadoms are a delightful, crisp mix between a chip and a cracker. Some varieties are super thin and fluffy, while others are more robust (like a pita chip). Originally popular in places like India and Pakistan, they are made with chickpea flour and are both baked AND fried. Sounds awesome, right? I first came across poppadoms while reading Neverwhere, when Door asks for spicy poppadoms to go with her vegetable curry at the Floating Market in London.
I was intrigued by the idea of these unusual little crackers, so I decided to make some for my Neverwhere menu! I tracked down a recipe from wikiHow that adds cayenne pepper to the list of ingredients (since Door specifically requests spicy poppadoms).
Never been very happy with our microwave oven, heating seems to be pretty uneven (10+ year old Panasonic inverter). But some of the photos in this article suggest that maybe, mine is not unusual. The science of microwaves.
Now microwaves are great places to puff up a poppadom or two - if you have even heating. The following photo shows what I get after 30 secs with mine using the rotating turntable. It will cook fully if I rearrange the poppadom about 4 times, but it's a bit hit and miss.
25 seconds at full power on a Panasonic flatbed microwave (these are definitely not the best for even distribution of mw energy - but fine for reheating etc). Placed on sheet of baking paper to minimise heat loss against cold plate.
Poppadom - $2 pack of probably about 50 plain poppadoms from local Indian supermarket. These are very good quality if fried in a pan. Also very easy - if you're cooking lots of them, they only take about 5 seconds each.
I've never been happy with a any microwave we have purchased in the last 10 years. We have got uneven heating and food seems to cool down quicker than with any other type of heating, though it's hard to be scientific about that.
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