Muri Chire Bhaja

My dad’s staple evening snack with his favourite cup of darjeeling tea is “Muri” (Puffed Rice) and sometimes “Muri Chire Bhaja” (A mixture of roasted puffed rice, flattened rice, peanuts & spices). And some memories are so nostalgic that it pushes us to relive them. So I decided to do exactly that while being away from home.

This is fairly common as a kolkata street snack and is ubiquitous on local trains crisscrossingthe city.

Ingredients:

• Puffed rice/ Muri- 4 cups
• Flattened rice/ Chire/ Poha- 2 cups
• White oil-1/2 cup
• Peanuts- 1/2 cup
• Curry leaves- a handful (fresh)
• Dry Red Chillies- 3 to 4
• Bhujia/ Chanachur/ Namkeen- 1 cup
• Salt- 1/2 teaspoon
• Powdered Sugar- 1 teaspoon
• Turmeric powder- 1/4 teaspoon
• Kashmiri red chilli powder- 1/4 teaspoon

Cooking Method:

1. Heat a pan, dry roast the Muri, remove and keep aside.
2. In the same pan heat white oil, once the oil is hot, lower the flame, fry the Pohas in batches and quickly remove. They will puff up and double in size, but their colour will remain unchanged.
3. Take out the Pohas in a kitchen tissue to let go of the excess oil.
4. In a bigger cooking pan, add 1 tablespoon of oil, fry the peanuts, add dry red chillies and curry leaves, then add the fried Poha, salt, sugar, turmeric and chilli powder & chanachur.
5. Finally add the dry roasted Muri and give it a good mix in very low flame for 3-4 minutes.
6. Let it completely cool down. Store in an airtight jar. Enjoy as your evening snack with a cup of tea!