Besan sev (gram flour noodles)

Besan Sev
(Gram flour noodles)

Besan Sev is one of those snacks that you can find all over India, even in a little tea shops in villages. Besan sev are crunchy, crispy fried snack, and shape like thick or very thin noodles.

Besan sev are prepared by putting spicy besan dough (gram flour) in the sev maker having small holes and then pressing down to get thin noodles in to hot oil and fried. Every housewife in North India used to make them at home for the festival likes Holi and Dewali, but now they are available readymade in packets.

There are so many varieties of sevs are available in shops. Very fine sev are used in making chaats like bhel and papdi chaat, the thicker sev are usually served as snacks. They are great tea time snack. Besan sev are quite easy to make, you only need a ‘sev maker’, a gadget for making the sevs. This machine comes with many pre-fabricated molds to prepare sev of varying thickness.

Ingredients:

2     Cups of gram flour (Besan flour)
1     Teaspoon carom seeds (ajwaiin) -crushed
1     Teaspoon red chili powder
2     Tablespoons vegetable oil
1¼ Teaspoon salt or to your taste
1     Pinch of asafetida
½ Cup + 2 Tablespoons of water or as needed to make the dough
Vegetable oil for frying

Also needed:

Besan sev maker - Besan sev sancha (There are two kind of Sav maker Traditional sev maker and Indian snack maker choose either one)

Cooking measurement conversion
Measurement converter

Besan (Gram Flour)

Traditional Besan sev sancha

Indian snack maker

Ajwaiin (Carom seeds)

Red chili powder

Asafetida (Hing)

Salt

Directions for making the dough for Sev:

1. Crush the Ajawaiin (Carom seeds) in mortar and pastel or with a rolling pin.
(If you do not grind Ajwaiin then the seeds might stuck in the Besan sev
making disk holes.)

In a Mortar & Pastel add Ajwaiin

Crush Ajwaiin (Carom seeds)

Ajwaiin is crushed

Crushed Ajwaiin (Carom seeds)

2. In a bowl add gram flour, crushed carom seeds, red chili powder, asafetida and salt and with a spoon mix everything together.

In a bowl add Besan

Add crushed Ajwaiin, Red chili powder, Hing (Asefetida) & Salt

2. Add oil in Besan.

Mix spices in Besan

Add oil in Besan

3. Mix oil well in Besan.

Mix oil in Besan

Oil is mixed well with Besan

4. Slowly add water little by little, while keep mixing it with your hand or spoon
  and make dough which is quite gooey and soft. Gooey dough easily comes
  out from the Besan maker and sev flow easily. Cover the bowl and leave the
  dough aside for 10 minutes.

Add water in Besan

Mix water in Besan

Make gooey Besan dough

Cover the dough

Directions for frying the Sev:

1. Heat the oil in a frying pan or kadhai on medium heat for 6 to 7 minutes or
until oil become hot.

2. To check if the oil is ready, drop a small ball of dough in the hot oil, if the
dough starts sizzling and come up slowly it means it is the right heat but if it
becomes too dark quickly it means oil is too hot, turn the heat down.

Heat the oil

Check the oil if it is hot

3. While oil is heating up, take the disc with medium holes and grease it.

4. Place the greased disc towards the bottom of the cylindrical part of Sev maker.

5. Fill the Sev maker with the dough and cover it with its lid.

Grease the Sev maker (Sancha)

Fill the sev maker with the dough

6. Once oil is hot reduce the heat to low medium , bring the sev maker over the
oil and start pressing, as soon as noodles fall slowly move the maker in a
circular motions.

Close the sev maker with lid

Twist the Sev maker & drop Sev in o

7. As you complete one circle, stop there and reverse the handle a bit to stop the
sev from coming out and with a knife or a fork stop the Sev dropping from the
sev maker.

8. As you press the dough into the hot oil, you will see the oil froths up in bubbles
which will eventually subside.

With a fork stop the sev’s from dropping

Oil froth up in bubbles

9. Immediately take a fork separate the sev, so that they don’t stick together
while they are frying.

With a fork or a knife separate the sev’s

Let the Sev fry

10. Let the sev fry for 1 minute then with the spatula turn them to other side and
fry for another minute,

11. Besan Sev fry very quickly, they take about 2 minutes to fry. While the sev are
frying keep string them around so that they fry even.

Turn the sev to other side

Keep turning the sev around

12. Once sev become golden with the pierced spatula take them out from the hot
oil and place them on a plate over the paper towel so that extra oil could be
absorbed.

Besan sev are fried

Take the Sve out of hot oil

Place the sev over paper towel

Besan sev

13. . Once you take all the sev out from the hot oil reduce the heat before you start frying the other batch of sev, because oil is hot and the sev will fried very quickly and they will not be crunchy. Once you drop the sev in the hot oil then raise the heat to medium. Repeat the process till the rest of the dough is done.

14. Once the sev completely cool down crush them to small pieces then store them in air tight container.

Crush the Besan Sev

Store Besan sev in a container

Tips:

1. Adjust the amount of spices according to your taste, make it more spicier or
less.

2. The thickness of the sev is a personal preference. You can make them thin or
thick. We like it a bit thick.

3. Do not fry too many Sev at a time.

Please take the time to let me know what you think about my recipe. Your comments would be helpful to me to improve the recipe.

Thank you

Geeta Seth

Other recipes:

Besan toast (gram flour dipped toast)           Mathri (crispy salty crackers)

Besan & sooji cheela                                     Moong dal cheela (pancake)
(Gram flour & cream of wheat pancake)

Besan cheela (gram flour pancake)           Poha with green peas

Besan Sev (Gram flour noodles)

Besan Sev
(Gram flour noodles)