Mamra: The best party mix

Krishna Kripa has never shown this prep at veggie club before because it's basically junk food, with just a little bit of nutritional value. However, since college students do depend on their daily dose of junk-food, Krishna Kripa finally broke down and decided to show it.

You can get puffed rice, sev, fried peas, etc. at Indian grocery stores. If you can, look for Giriraja brand -- that's Krishna Kripa's business.

Ingredients

3 cups puffed rice
1 cup sev (chickpea noodles), or roasted peanuts, or fried peas
4-5 Tbsps oil
Spices
- 2-3 dried red chillis
- 1/2 tsp mustard seed
- 3/4 tsp cumin seed
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- pinch of hing
- salt

Preparation

Heat the oil in a wok on high heat. Let it get pretty hot, then add the chillies, mustard seed, turmeric, and cumin seed. Let the spices pop and brown. Then drop in a pinch of hing from a distance (so it disperses in the oil). After stirring, turn off the flame and quickly add in the puffed rice.

Stir thoroughly. Add just a bit of salt. Then, add in some sev, fried peas, peanuts, or whatever you like. Mix thoroughly.

Variations

You can use plain popcorn as the base instead of puffed rice. Apparently, Kelloggs' Rice Krispies also works as a base. For what it's worth, Dr. Kellogg was an early American vegetarian revolutionary of sorts. He originally designed Corn Flakes to provide a high-quality vegetarian breakfast, in great contrast to the meat-and-eggs regimen widely touted in his day.