Name: Spicy Puffed Rice Snack
Yield: Makes about 3 cups rice snack
Cuisine: India
Ingredients: ½ teaspoon cumin seed; 1 large shallot, finely chopped; 2 jalapeño chiles, seeded and finely chopped; ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper; ¼ cup grated unsweetened fresh, frozen, or dried coconut; ½ teaspoon salt; 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice; ½ cup finely chopped European cucumber; 1 small plum tomato, finely chopped; ¼ teaspoon turmeric; ½ teaspoon mustard seed; ¼ teaspoon nigella seed; Pinch of anise seed; 1 teaspoon mustard oil or peanut oil; 2 cups puffed rice

Preparation info

Makes about
3 cups
rice snack

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Seductions of Rice

By Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

Published 1998

About

This easily assembled snack food has only one problem: it’s so delicious that you and your guests will go through piles of it. It is traditional in Bengal, eaten in handfuls from a large bowl. It has complex flavor as well as fresh crunch from the combination of spicing and finely chopped tomato and cucumber. The puffed rice—available at South Asian grocery stores, sold in large cellophane bags—helps all the flavors blend.

Murree is traditionally flavored with jannachur