Gunta Pongadalu - గుంట పొంగడాలు - Indian Recipes - గాయత్రి వంటిల్లు

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Preparations:

Take a bowl and add bengal gram, black gram, green gram and rice to it. Add water to the bowl and wash the ingredients. Fill the ingredients with water and soak them for 6 hours or preferably soak overnight. Grind the soaked ingredients in a wet grinder or mixer grinder to a smooth batter. The batter should be of Idli batter consistency. Transfer the batter to a bowl and add salt. Mix the batter well and place this bowl in a plate and partially cover it with a plate. Allow the batter to ferment. It may take 4 to 6 hours.

Peel the onions and chop them finely. Crush black pepper to a coarse powder using mortar & pestle and keep it aside. Wash and clean green chilies and ginger. Grind green chilies, ginger and cumin seeds to a coarse paste.

Method:

Stir the fermented batter with a spoon and add chopped onions, green chili-ginger-cumin paste, crushed black pepper and salt (if required). Mix all the ingredients well. Now the batter is ready to prepare Guntapongadalu.

A cast-iron pan with slots (Guntalu) is used to prepare these Guntapongadalu. Preferably take a non-stick pan for easy maintenance. A pointed stick comes along with the pan to take out the fried Guntapongadalu. Heat this pan and add oil (around 3/4tsp) in each slot. When oil is hot add a spoonful of batter in each slot. Fill three-fourths of the slot with batter, because they expand on frying. Fry for a while and turn them with the help of the stick as shown in the movie clip. Observe that the Guntapongadalu become crisp at the bottom and batter is flowing on the top. It would be difficult to turn such pongadalu---but here there is a tip. After filling the slots with batter, cover the pan and cook for a minute. After one minute observe that the pongadalu look steam cooked on the top like Idlis. Now turning the pongadalu would be easy. If required add some oil and fry till crisp. Fry them on medium heat. With the help of a spoon take them out of the slots and serve hot with coconut chutney. They can also be served with Ginger chutney, Nuvvu Podi, Karapodi etc.

Points to Remember:

Place the batter bowl in a plate as the batter spills over after fermenting if the bowl is not deep enough.

Ferment the batter to become a bit sour. The sour batter mixed with onions, chilies, cumin, coriander and black pepper gives a nice taste to the dish. They can be eaten as it is or serve them with coconut chutney, nuvvu podi etc..

Add spices according to taste.

Fill only three-fourths of the slot with batter. The batter expands on heating and fills the slot. Guntapongadalu comes out easily from the slots when using a non-stick pan.

As variation one can even prepare Dosa’s with this batter and they taste good. As the rice content is more in the batter we get crisp dosas.

Guntapongadalu may be prepared with left over Idli batter or Dosa batter also. Ensure that batter is fermented properly.

Fry the Guntapongadalu till crisp on medium heat and serve hot.