Sago wafers or vadams are usually made in the summers, making good use of sun. A years supply of vadams are usually made in households even now. Also it isn’t a laborious process as people think it is. You need some time, say one hour or so to cook and make the vadams, also an access to terrace or a open place to sun it. Early morning is the the best time to make the vadams in the terrace, in the backyards or in the open space, wherever you are making it. These vadams when dried , can be fried to make yummy snacks and can be served with rice.
Recipe from Cook & See Part 1.
Ingredients
- Sago pearls or javvarisi – 1 ½ kilo,
- Green chillies – 175 grams to 250 grams,
- Salt – ½ cup to ¾ cup,
- Sour buttermilk – 2 cup,
- Lemon – 2 or 3,
- Asafoetida – ½ teaspoon,
- Water – 6 litres (approx.).
- A Vadam sheet / plastic sheet or a white, two metre muslin cloth.
Method
- Take two litres of water and add the buttermilk to it. Add the sago to it. Stir and leave undisturbed for 1 hour. Drain the soaked sago and keep aside
- Heat rest of the water in a thick broad vessel. Add the soaked sago pearls, to the boiling water and go on stirring till the sago gets cooked well and it becomes a thick gruel or koozh(porridge).
- Meanwhile, grind green chillies, salt and asafoetida into a smooth paste. Add to the gruel and mix well.
- Squeeze juice of one lemon into it. Taste the gruel and see if the gruel has sufficient spiciness or tanginess and salt to your liking.
- Please add just enough salt, as the wafers will not taste good if they have too much salt. The gruel is ready to be made into wafers.
- Dampen the muslin cloth, if using plastic sheet, spread it on a clean sunny surface and fasten the four corners by keeping bricks.
- With a ladle, scoop some gruel and make small circular rings in the sheet. Repeat till the gruel gets exhausted.
- Give a gap of two centimetres between the wafers.
- Sun dry them for a day or two. If you see the edges of wafers, coming out, prise them out and sun dry the other side. When both sides are well dried, remove and store.
- When the wafers are absolutely dry , tin them . Deep fry them as and when required.
- If you want the sago wafers to be beady in texture, do not soak the sago. Add them directly to the boiling water(6 liters) mixed in 2 litres of buttermilk.
- Stir and cook until they become a thick gruel.
Note
- Keep some extra boiling water in handy, so that it could be added to the gruel , while cooking , if needed.
- The gruel should be neither too thick nor too thin.
