Milagai bajji / Mirapakaya bajjilu / Fritters with green chilli peppers

 

Do you love the smell of green chilli peppers? I do. I just love the smell and these bajjis are  an excellent way to enjoy their warmth and flavour. My first meeting with chilli bajjis was during our school trip to Ooty. Everywhere you can see small vendors selling them hot, hot and for that cold ooty climate they make an excellent snack. Recently, during our India visit we had fresh, very hot green chillies direct from the farm.  They looked very tempting. So me and my mom-in-law made some bajjis with it. I noticed that my mom-in-law made a very quick and easy filling just with garam masala. They tasted very good. So I would like to share her method with you all.

 

Ingredients :

Green chilli peppers (less hot variety)- 6 nos

Garam masala- any garam masala of your choice, chat masala will also be too good- 1 tspn

Besan or gram dhal flour- 1 cup

Rice flour- 1/4 cup

Red chilli powder- 1/2 tspn

Baking soda- 1/8 tspn (optional)

Asafoetida- few pinches

Salt to taste

Oil for deep frying

Method :

Mix besan, rice flour, red chilli powder, asafoetida, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Now add water to make a thick paste. The consistency of the batter should be similar to idly batter. Wash the green chillies. Wipe them with a clean cloth. Make slit on each chillies as shown in picture. Now mix the garam masala of your choice with little salt. Apply this mixture into the slit as a thin coating. Then dip individual chillies into the batter and and deep fry them in hot oil. Very tasty bajjis will be ready.

Taste enhancing tips for this recipe : Batter consistency is important. It should be thick enough to coat the chilli peppers uniformly. I love if the chillies are a bit hot. Try this garam masala stuffing, it tastes really good. But the garam masala mixed with salt should be applied only as a thin coat, do not stuff it. If you use a hot variety chilli try removing its seeds and try soaking them in salted water for 8 hours . This will help to reduce their hotness.  Happy cooking !!! and have a wonderful weekend ahead!!!

Actually there are several types of filling used for making milagai bajji. Some people use ajwain seeds containing filling, some use seasame seeds and some use onions but for me the bajjis taste very good without any filling because I feel the fillings mentioned above overpower the real taste and flavour of chilli peppers. The filling my mom-in-law used was perfect. It did not overpower the real chilli pepper taste.Hope you will also like it too :)