Seppankizhangu Varuval

Tamil taro boiled, flattened, rolled in sambar powder and rice flour and shallow fried until the crust shatters

Origin: Chettinad, Tamil Nadu & the Coromandel Coast

From the journey of Taro.

Seppankizhangu is the Tamil name for the taro corm, kizhangu being the general word for a tuber, and varuval means fried. The dish is the standard Tamil answer to what to do with it, and it is built entirely around a textural trick: the boiled corm is pressed flat with the heel of the hand before it is coated, which increases the surface area and gives the rice flour something to grip, so that what comes out of the pan is crisp all over rather than crisp on two faces. It belongs to the everyday rather than the ceremonial. Taro is a cheap, unglamorous, widely grown vegetable across Tamil Nadu, and this is the preparation that makes children eat it: shatteringly crisp outside, floury and soft within, and hot with the same sambar powder that seasons the rest of the meal. It is served as the dry side, the poriyal slot, alongside sambar, rasam, curd, and rice, and it is eaten first because it does not survive being left. The Chettinad version, from the Chettiar country of the dry interior, is the most heavily spiced and often adds a little ground fennel and star anise to the coating, which is the regional signature. The plainer Tamil home version stops at sambar powder, turmeric, and chilli. The rice flour is what separates a good varuval from a soggy one, and the quantity is small. Too much and the coating tastes of raw flour; too little and the surface never sets. Two tablespoons for six hundred grammes of corm is the standard proportion, and the coated pieces should look barely dusted rather than battered.

Ingredients

Boiling

  • 600 g taro (seppankizhangu), scrubbed but unpeeled
  • 1 tsp salt, for the boiling water
  • 0.5 tsp ground turmeric, for the boiling water

Coating

  • 2 tbsp rice flour
  • 2 tsp sambar powder
  • 0.5 tsp ground turmeric
  • 1 tsp red chilli powder
  • 0.25 tsp asafoetida
  • 0.75 tsp salt, or to taste

Frying

  • 5 tbsp sesame oil or coconut oil
  • 1 tsp black mustard seeds
  • 2 sprigs curry leaves

Method

  1. Boil the taro whole and unpeeled in salted, turmeric-tinted water for twenty minutes, until a skewer meets no resistance at the centre.
  2. Do not let them overcook to the point of collapse. They must be soft through but still able to hold together when pressed.
  3. Drain, cool enough to handle, and slip the skins off. Peeling after boiling avoids the fierce itching that raw taro sap causes.
  4. Cut the corms in half lengthways, or leave small ones whole.
  5. Press each piece flat with the heel of your hand or the base of a glass, to about 1cm thick. They should crack slightly at the edges rather than disintegrate.
  6. This flattening is the whole technique. It doubles the surface that will crisp and gives the flour an uneven face to hold on to.
  7. Mix the rice flour, sambar powder, turmeric, chilli powder, asafoetida, and salt in a wide bowl.
  8. Turn the flattened pieces through the mixture until barely dusted. The coating should be thin; a thick one tastes of raw flour.
  9. Heat the oil in a wide heavy pan, crackle the mustard seeds, and throw in the curry leaves.
  10. Lay the pieces in a single layer, not touching, and fry over a medium heat for six or seven minutes without moving them.
  11. Turn once and fry the second side for five minutes more, until both faces are deep brown and audibly crisp. Work in batches rather than crowding the pan.
  12. Drain briefly on paper and serve at once, with sambar, rasam, curd, and rice. It softens within half an hour, so it is made last.

Notes

Taro must be boiled until entirely soft before it is fried: the crystals in an undercooked corm cause severe throat irritation, and frying is far too short a process to deal with them. Peel after boiling rather than before. Keep the rice flour to the quantity given, since the coating should be a dusting rather than a batter. The pan must be hot enough that the pieces sizzle on contact but not so hot that the coating burns before the inside warms through, and the pieces must not be moved for the first several minutes or the crust will not form. Sesame oil, the gingelly oil of the Tamil kitchen, is traditional and gives the right flavour.

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