How to Prepare Tamil Nadu’s Traditional Thaen Mittai – Sweet Dish for snack

How to Prepare Tamil Nadu’s Traditional Thaen Mittai – Sweet Dish for snack

Tamil Nadu’s Traditional Sweet Dish Thaen Mittai recipe is very easy to prepare. When we try to remember memories from our school days many things come to mind like home work punishments, fights with friends and rank card sign from parents. Along with all those things we will never forget to recall the interval time snacks that we buy from the school entrance shop. Some of the snacks that we love for life time are Thaen Mittai, Kamarkattu and Kadalai Mittai. Among all those snacks and sweets one which I like a lot is the Thaen Mittai.

Tamil Nadu’s Traditional Thaen Mittai Recipe

Let us see how to prepare this Tamil Nadu’s Traditional Sweet Dish Thaen Mittai. It is a simple recipe to prepare. It looks crispy outside and is juicy inside. We search for sweets like Thaen Mittai usually when we are told to eat medicines like kashaayam or Layghiyam. It will be nice if we eat Thaen Mittai soon after consuming kashaayam or Layghiyam. When we were kids, we use to get it in most of the small Petti shops. But now a day, it is not available in most of the shops. We can prepare this Thaen Mittai very easily at home.

Ingredients Required to prepare Tamil Nadu’s Traditional Thaen Mittai

Idly Rice (Par-Boiled) – 200 grams

Whole Black Gram Dal/ Urad Dal – 40 grams (Skin Removed)

Sabudhaana – 10 grams

Baking Soda – 2 pinches

Food Color – ¼ Tea Spoon (Orange Color)

Sugar – 200 grams

Water – 100 ml

Preparation procedure for Tamil Nadu’s Traditional Thaen Mittai

First, we have to prepare the batter for Thaen Mittai

Soak idly rice, urad dal and sabudhaana all together in a vessel with enough amount of water for about four hours.

After all ingredients have soaks well, put them in a mixer grinder and grind it into a consistency thicker than idly batter.

Before finishing grinding process, add a pinch of salt and let it to grind for few minutes. Adding salt is just to enhance the sweetness of the sweet dish. So, no need to add more salt. Just add a pinch of it. Along with the salt we should also add soda salt/ baking soda. After adding this, grind it finally for just a minute. We are adding this baking soda to make the Thaen Mittai crispy.

After grinding the batter, transfer it into a bowl. The batter should be thick enough to make balls with your hand. If the batter is not that much thick, do not worry. There is a trick that my mother use to do to remove excess water from this batter. Take a thick white cotton cloth and fold it into multiple layers. My mother uses my father’s Veshti for this. On this folded cloth transfer all batter and close it. Let it for few minutes and then open it. The excess water from the batter will get absorbed by that cloth and our batter will become thicker. We should check the batter inside the cloth every minute and remove it from the cloth when it becomes as thick as we need. We should never let the batter in the cloth for longer time without checking. If we let it so, then the cloth may absorb water more and more from batter. And then the batter will not be able to make balls, it will break.

After getting correct consistency batter transfer it to a bowl.  Now add color powder to it. Mix the color powder evenly throughout the batter.

Now let us see how to make syrup for Tamil Nadu’s Traditional Thaen Mittai

Take sugar in a thick bottom vessel and add 75 to 100 ml of water.

Let this mixture to boil for about 6 to 7 minutes. After that try to take a drop of syrup with two fingers and widen the fingers apart from each other. If you get a string like consistency, the syrup is ready.

Pour few drops of lemon juice into this sugar syrup in this stage. As the sugar syrup cools it will try to turn back to crystal sugar state. To avoid this crystallization of the syrup back to its original state we add lemon juice.

Now we must fry the Thaen Mittai Balls

For this take enough oil in a deep-frying pan and heat it well.

Now we must make Thaen Mittai balls. For this dip your fingers into water and wet it very well. Take a small portion of batter make small balls with your fingers.

Now reduce the flame to low and start putting the balls. Before making each ball dip your finger into water. This will avoid batter sticking in your hands.

Fry the Thaen Mittai balls on all sides by turning it now and then. Do not increase the flame to high. If in case you feel that cooking is very slow, turn it medium flame. If you keep in medium flame the Thaen Mittai balls will fry very well and crispy. If you try to fry in high flame it will burn in the outer layer and the inner portion will remain uncooked.

Do not forget to add baking soda. Only then the balls will come fluffy.

Once all the Thaen Mittai balls have got fried, take it out of flame and put them directly into hot sugar syrup. If the sugar syrup has cooled down at this time. Try to re-heat it and then put the fried balls. This will help the sugar syrup to enter the fried balls sooner and easier. While re-heating the sugar syrup, add one or two tea spoons of water.

Same way you can fry more sets of balls and add them in syrup. For each set see that the syrup is hot enough. Once you put the balls into syrup shake the vessel so that all sides of fried balls get soaked in sugar syrup. If you are very found of sweet, you can even increase the sweetness by making 300 or 400 grams of sugar syrup with same quantity of water.

After the balls get soaked in syrup, take it out of the syrup and spread in a plate and let it to dry under fan. Even after drying well if you feel that the Thaen Mittai is sticky, then make sugar into fine powder with mixer jar and put the Thaen Mittai balls in that sugar powder and roll it all throughout. You can store this Thaen Mittai in an air tight container and enjoy for a week or even more if refrigerated. This is a easy dish to prepare and so it is better to prepare it fresh now and then. Try this easy recipe of Tamil Nadu's Traditional Thaen Mittai and let us know your experience.