Microwave Low Fat Masala Peanuts

One of my fondest childhood memories is of my father taking us all to a nearby canteen to buy us Masala Peanuts. Those were the crispy, spicy, gram flour coated deep fried ones. We used to enjoy eating them out of small paper cones. 

I was delighted to find this recipe for the masala peanuts in Tarla Dalal's Microwave Cooking book. These taste so good and you can make a cupful of these with just one tablespoon of oil. Isn't that great! It takes time and effort to make these, but hey you get this lovely snack with relatively so few calories and fat(from oil) to go with your evening coffee. Makes approximately one cup.

Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted peanuts, unskinned
1/2 cup gram flour
2 teaspoons chilli powder
A pinch of Ajwain seeds( you could use fennel seeds or hing here)
1 tablespoon oil
2-3 tablespoons water
Salt to taste

Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add the water and oil. Be careful not to add more water. Avoid eyeballing measures for this recipe. I have tried eye-balling and the results were not so good. Ensure the batter coats the peanuts evenly.

Drop the peanuts one by one or in clusters of 2-3 peanuts max on wax paper. These would need to be arranged in a circle near the outer edge of the paper, no circles within the outer circle, no peanuts in the middle. (I know I may be sounding ambiguous,hope you get what I mean to say)  You could also drop on the peanuts on the microwave plate, but using wax paper is quicker and less mess later to clean up. Microwave on HIGH for 1 1/2 minutes. Remove from the wax paper, cool and store in an air tight container. Enjoy with your coffee!!

Please Note: As goes with a lot of microwave recipes, even a few seconds extra can cause the peanuts to harden too much or burn.

Do not reuse the same wax paper more than twice as it may burn.