Wash and soak chana dal for about 6 hours or overnight. Drain and spread them on a kitchen towel for 15-20 minutes.
Heat oil in a pan. Once the oil becomes hot, reduce the flame to medium and add a batch of dal into the oil using a stainless steel strainer. Do not overcrowd the oil and fry in batches. Stir in-between so that they don’t stick together.
You will know that the dal is fried, when bubbles in the oil will disappear and dal will float on the surface.
Remove and drain them on an absorbent paper to soak excess oil.
In the same manner, fry the remaining dal. Also fry the peanuts.
Take fried dal and peanuts in a bowl and add all the dry spices – chaat masala, red chilli powder, hing and salt. Mix well.
Once completely cooled, store in an air tight container.
Video
Notes
•To serve this snack in a chaat form, just add chopped tomatoes, onions, raw mango and lemon juice, toss and serve.•The only tricky part in this recipe is the frying of chana dal. Make sure to heat the oil for frying chana dal on high flame. Once it gets hot, reduce the flame to medium and then add the dal. Fry on a medium flame.•While frying chana dal, stir in-between so that dal doesn’t stick together.•Once bubbles in the oil supress and dal floats on the surface, the dal is done and ready to be removed from oil.•You can adjust spices as per your taste.•For Pudina flavoured dal, add Pudina Powder to this dal with all the other spices.•You can make Pudina/Mint powder at home by following our step-wise procedure.