Pumpkin fryums

Pumpkin fryums (Gummidi Vodiyam)

Ingredients
? Green Pumpkin
? White lentil ( Urad dal) ? 1 cup
? Asafetida ? a small piece or ½ tea spoon
? Red Chilli flakes ? 2 teaspoons
? Green chillies -5
? Flattened rice(Poha) ? ½ cup
? Salt

Procedure:
This consists of two parts
A) Preparation of the Urad dal paste:

? Soak 1 cup of Urad dal (White lentil) in water for 2 hours.
? Wash the dal thoroughly and drain all the water.
? Grind the dal with the green chillies adding minimum amount of water to form a thick paste.
? Add asafetida and the red chilli flakes and salt and keep this paste aside.
? Wash the flattened rice and drain the water.Add this to the paste. Addition of this makes the whole mixture crispy when fried in oil.


B) Preparing the Pumpkin
? Take ½ kg of green pumpkin, wash it thoroughly and cut it into small pieces.
? Do not remove the skin of the pumpkin while slicing it.
? Mix these cut pieces with salt and keep them aside in a vessel for 30 mins.
? The salt removes the water content from the pumpkin.
? Drain out the water from the pumpkin pieces and now add it to the urad dal paste.

Small portions of this mixture are flattened to make discs .The discs are then dried in sun for a few days. They have to be turned around every few hours,to ensure that they are completely dried. These are fried in oil and they complement cooked white rice.

While the procedure is lengthy,once its done its a crisp delicious fast food.

This mixture can also be instantly fried immediately without drying. These are often known as Pacchi Vodiyam in Andhra Pradesh (Southern India). This is my personal favorite and I have it with cooked rice.