My family loves peanuts and needless to say they go crazy over masala peanuts. But I try to avoid deep frying as much as possible much to my hubby’s dismay . So when I came across the baked masala peanuts recipe from Jugalbandi I had to try it out. The masala got perfectly coated over the peanuts and it was nice and crispy. Above all it is healthy and very easy to prepare. I have successfully doubled the recipe but still have not managed to keep the masala peanuts for more than 2 or 3 days thanks to my hubby and 6 yr old. So friends get ready to enjoy this healthy and guilt free snack.
Ingredients
1.5 cups raw peanuts
1.5 cups besan/chickpea flour
1.5 tbsp rice flour
2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chilly powder
1/2 tsp salt
a pinch of turmeric
2 oz water
Method
Preheat oven to 400F. Make a mix with besan, rice flour, cumin, chilly powder, salt and turmeric.
Take half of the above mixture and pour about 2 oz water to make a paste of the following consistency.
Pour the paste over the peanuts and mix with a spoon so that all peanuts are coated with the paste.
To the other half of the dry mixture add the olive oil. This is totally optional and can be skipped making it totally oil free. I have tried it both ways and found that the oil made it much more crispier.
Add this remaining dry mixture to the peanuts which are coated with the paste. Mix well using a strong spoon as it clumps up a lot and we need to put some pressure to mix it. It is ok if there is a little bit of flour here and there but if you feel there is too much then just barely wet your hands with water and mix.
Place the peanuts in a baking sheet lined with aluminium foil to make cleanup easier. It is going to be clumpy and in clusters and that is fine.
Bake for 15 minutes after which it is time to break the clumps. We want individual peanuts to munch on and not clusters right. I just use my hand to break the clusters while they are still hot and nope I did not get burnt.
Get it back to the oven for another 10 minutes. Garam garam masala peanuts ready. Half the bowl is already gone ..
Tips
1. Any combination of spices can be used.
2. Rice flour is just used for making it crisp. It is optional.
3. It gets more crispier as it cools.
Sending these to Drive Me Nuts event of Taste Junction.