KARA PORI - SPICY PUFFED RICE

      This Kara Pori is a popular snack in Tamil Nadu.  Particularly it is a common snack in a Coimbatore household.  A quick and easy evening snack, with very few ingredients.  Puffed Rice, Groundnuts/Peanuts, Roasted Gram Dhal(Pottukadalai) and a few seasoning is all that you need for this spicy Snack.  I have used Dry Red Chillies and Garlic for flavouring and have seasoned it with Salt.
     It was a common scenario in our Street around 3-4p.m, a street vendor who sells Puffed Rice, Pottukadalai, Groundnut etc., comes with his small pushcart during this time.  The ladies after their afternoon Siesta would flock around to buy their portion of ingredients and there they go into their kitchen to prepare this Teatime Snack ready for their kids when they come back from School/College.  You can always see a big airtight container filled with this Kara Pori in most of the households.
     Cheap & best yet tasty and filling. My Mom used to make it for us.  I am not a big fan of this snack.  But my hubby is like head over heels for this that I started making it.  But lately, it happened that the puffed rice went soggy when I tried making it after coming down to Malaysia.  And I stopped making it, left alone long forgotten.
     The recent COVID-19 & MCO (Movement Control Order) has kept us all at home.  An unexpected period of time never experienced before.  The quarantine period is strictly obliged and followed where my husband went all alone for Shopping Groceries.  There he came with a big bag of Puffed Rice and immediately he wanted to make this Kara Pori.  Pondered through the web, went through some videos from YouTube and there went my trial once again.  Hurray!!! there it came out unflawed -. Crispy & Spicy.  The first batch got over in no time and back to back I made two batches.  So here you go with the utmost simple snack for this quarantine period - KARA PORI!!!


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KARA PORI - SPICY PUFFED RICE

INGREDIENTS:

Coconut Oil - 3 Tbspn
Garlic - 8-10 Cloves
Dry Red Chillies - 3-4 Nos.
Curry Leaves - 2 Sprigs
Ground Nuts - 1/3 Cups
Roasted Gram Dhal(Pottu Kadalai) - 1/3 Cups
Turmeric Powder - 1/2 Tspn
Salt - To Taste
Puffed Rice - 5-6 Cups

METHOD:

• Peel the Garlic, Crush it and keep it aside.
• Heat Oil in a Pan, saute crushed Garlic Cloves in the oil until fragrant and slightly browned.
• Add Dry chillies snapped off into small pieces, along with Curry Leaves and fry on a very low flame for few minutes.
• Add Pottukadalai and Groundnut to the above and roast in on a very low flame until crisp and roasted. 
• Immediately add Turmeric Powder and Salt.
• Fry this on a very low flame until the raw flavour goes.
• Care should be taken not to burn the ingredients.
• Add the Puffed Rice and give a good stir until all the ingredients are well combined.
• Let the flame be at low all the while.
• Allow it to cool for a few minutes.
• Store Kara Pori in an airtight container.
• Kara Pori is a good tea time snack and goes well with hot-hot Tea/Coffee.

NOTES:

• Taste the Puffed Rice, some Puffed Rice tends to be salty on its own, so adjust the amount of salt in your recipe accordingly. 
• Adjust the number of Dry Chillies to suit your spice level.
• I have used slightly crushed Garlic in the recipe, which gives a wonderful flavour to the Kara Pori.
• Saute it on a low flame until fragrant and slightly browned.
• Can add a teaspoon of Red Chilli Powder for a Spicy Kara Pori.
• Coconut Oil yields a wonderful flavour can use any other vegetable oil/ghee.