Trial and error (3): Crispy rice balls

Quite a few months back we had bought some rice flour to make idiyappams at home. In simple words these are steamed rice noodles. When in Chennai we normally have them with chicken kurma which has a coconut gravy as a base. Unfortunately in our maiden attempt both the batter and the instrument for pressing out the noodles gave us trouble. After this colossal failure the rice flour was relegated to a not easily visible corner.

Now that I am back on my cooking track, I thought of looking for recipes that put to use rice flour and Crispy rice balls came to my rescue.

How I did it?
I simply followed Tarla Dalal's directions given on the link. I used 1/2 cup water for about 2 cups of rice. I did not double the quantity of rice flour from 1/2 to 1 cup as it was a bit coarse in texture. I added about 1/2 tsp of chilli powder though it wasn't mentioned in the recipe.

Notes on the cooking technique.
As I read the method for making the rice balls I realized that my mother used to make something similar except it was with only onions, using soaked bread slices instead of rice flour, making cylindrical shapes and not balls and shallow frying versus deep frying. But as the whole point was to use rice flour I decided to follow Tarla Dalal.

       From my end I kneaded the mixture well so that the rice grains were no longer separate but got meshed. I found that deep frying allowed the rice balls to be evenly browned from all around. According to a reviewer of the recipe it is the rice flour which gives the crispiness.

My husband's verdict.
To my great relief he liked them. It tickled me when my husband thought that they were made from potatoes. What delighted me more was when he was willing to have them again with tea.

Here is the photo of the Crispy rice balls. 

Crispy rice balls made at home