Sarva Pindi Recipe (Spicy Rice Flour Pancakes)

Sarva pindi is a savory flatbread traditionally made with rice flour. It is a vegan and gluten-free snack or breakfast item which is tasty.

What is Sarvapindi

Sarvapindi is a specialty dish from the state of Telangana. There are few shops in the Karimnagar district of Telangana which only sells this item. Though I haven't tried it, I heard it from many people about its taste.

Everyone at our home likes this traditional dish so much and we end up making it at least once a week. As we make this very often, I try to sneak veggies and leafy greens into this dish.

And trust me, no one can find it out and fussy kids will also enjoy it. This dish is a good and easy way to include veggies into your breakfast.

Detailed steps to make sarvapindi:

Grate bottle gourd and ridge gourd. Add all ingredients to a mixing dish and mix everything without adding any water. If possible rest the flour mixture for 5 to 10 minutes so that water will be released from the veggies.

Now add water little by little and make a dough. Don't add more water, it should be a little hard. By the time we make roti, water will be released from veggies and dough will become soft.

Now take an orange-sized portion of dough and pat it to the kadai as shown in the below picture. Make small holes so that oil penetrates and sarva pindi cooks evenly.

Add a few spoons of oil and spread it all over. Now cover the dish with a lid and cook for around 10 to 15 minutes till it is a golden brown color. (No need to flip the sarva pindi and cook another side).

Serve Sarva pindi hot or cold!!!

How to serve sarva pindi :

• Sarvapindi goes very well with yogurt and/or freshly churned butter.
• Ghee also compliments this dish well and it's my favorite combination.
• In summers, we eat this with thick mango juice (aamras). Yes, you heard it right! Sweet mango juice with spicy sarvapindi tastes heaven 🙂 I literally wait for summers to eat this combo 🙂

Variations:

Traditional sarva pindi recipe has only rice flour, chana dal, and spices but as I told earlier, I like to add different veggies to the dough.

The usual vegetable added to this recipe is bottle gourd and then we call the dish as sorakaya sarvapindi at our home.

Apart from bottle gourd, ridge gourd, carrot, beetroot, radish, zucchini will also go well in this recipe. I usually change veggies according to the season.

And whenever you add any root veggies, try adding its leaves as well. Adding leaves increases the taste of the dish and makes it more nutritious. The above picture has radish and its leaves in the sarvapindi.

Other than the above-mentioned veggies, spring onions taste very well in this recipe.

And now coming to the flour, I sometimes use ragi flour(finger millet flour) and rice flour in 1:1 ratio. Rice flour can be substituted with Sorghum flour (jonna pindi), buckwheat flour, or any gluten-free flour. Just make sure the consistency of the dough. It should be a little hard.

Also with the same dough (excluding veggies and onions), we make puris and deep fry them, called Chekkalu or Pappu Chekkalu in Telugu. We do chekkalu occasionally and mostly during festivals as it is a deep-fried item. As we don't add onions and veggies, these stores well for 15 to 20 days and eat as an evening snack with a cup of tea.

Akki roti, a typical Karnataka dish is similar to this dish and it has fennel leaves which gives the unique flavor to the akki roti.

The traditional sarvapindi recipe requires more oil to cook. The oil has to float so that sarvapindi gets cooked properly and crunchy on the outside.

As we make this breakfast recipe every week at home, instead of following this traditional way to prepare sarvapindi, we make this as chapathi and fry it on tawa using one or two teaspoon of oil. I will write a detailed post on it soon.

Tips and tricks:

• Though the dish has few and common ingredients, the difficult part is forming the shape. Traditional sarva pindi is shaped on to flat bottom vessel called as sarva pindi ginnelu. But I use iron kadai. It is easy to shape the dough on the flat bottomed pan. You can use non-stick kadai as well.
• To get the correct shape and crispy sarva pindi, the dough should be little hard.
• Do not add water all at once. Water quantity depends on flour and added veggies. If veggies are very fresh, they release more water when mixed and so we need to add less water.

Have you tried this recipe? Provide your feedback by giving a star rating and/or leaving comments. And don't forget to share the recipe with others on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or Twitter.

Recipe card:

Recipe

Recipe notes:

• Chana dal can be soaked up to 4 hours. If soaking for more time, soak it in the refrigerator.
• The amount of dough to make the Sarva pindi depends on the size of your pan.
• Onion and garlic can be omitted from the recipe to make it no onion no garlic recipe.
• While cooking the Sarva pindi, cover with a lid so that Sarva pindi will be cooked with steam and less oil is absorbed.
• As we are adding onion, this will not keep well for more than few hours. If required, you can prepare the flour mixture and refrigerate it for a week.