Boondi Raita

Mint is one of my favourite herbs. For me it denotes instant freshness. Add it to curries, salads, dips, to anything you want & what you get is a 'fresh' and unique taste. There has to be a reason why most of the mouth fresheners(and toothpastes!) are mint flavoured.

The only place I don't like it is with Chocolate, though mint flavoured chocolate is supposed to be a huge rage! I prefer my chocolate to be 'pure'. Some flavours do blend in well with Chocolate such as Coffee, even Orange but not Mint for me. Having said that there are some dishes where I wont compromise at all without the Mint. This Paneer Pasanda for example gets that special taste only because of the mint.

The pairing of mint with curd/yogurt is one of the best, if you ask me. The only adjective that comes to mind when I think about both of these together is 'COOL'.

I generally serve a curd based side dish with a spicy vegetable/curry preparation to balance the taste. This could be a koshimbir, raita or just plain curd with some sugar! A couple of days back I had made Boondi raita on one such occasion. When I was looking for fresh coriander to add to the raita, my eyes fell upon this bunch of mint and I picked that up instead.The combination was awesome and reminded me of the dip served in one of the Indian restaurants which I had liked a lot.

Boondi is a snack on its own, prepared by deep frying tiny balls of besan (gram flour) batter. These tiny balls are achieved by using a perforated ladle, generally used while handling fried items. Boondi can be sweet or salty. Sweet boondi is also made into ladoo/laddu usually prepared during festivals or marriages. A North Karnataka wedding is considered to be incomplete without these in the menu for the D day! Boondi ladoo, huge ones at that, is also the main prasadam at the Balaji Temple in Tirupati having a unique taste of its own.

Minty Boondi Raita

Ingredients

• 2 cups of curd/yogurt
• 1 cup Boondi (Salty)
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp red chili powder
• 1/2 tsp kala namak (rock salt)
• 1/2 tsp chat masala
• 1/2 tsp jeera powder (Cumin powder)
• 7-8 mint leaves

Method:

Whisk the curd in a bowl adding a little water . Add all other ingredients except the Boondi and stir well.

There are two ways that the Boondi can be added. If you are serving the Raita immediately, then soak the boondi in some warm water for 2 min, take them out & squeeze out the water and then add them to the curd. Otherwise they can be directly added to the curd and kept in the refrigerator. I prefer to add the boondi directly even if serving immediately because I like the slight crunch of the crisp boondi in the raita.

The raita ideally has to be kept to rest for sometime for the flavour of the mint to get infused properly.

This Minty Raita is on its way to
Siri's Frozen Yogurt @ Siri's Corner

Dee's Herb Mania @ Ammalu's Kitchen