Spiced Crispies (Chivda) Recipe
This is a longer version of a post that is cross-posted t cooking.
I went to Seattle around Halloween to help construct and act in my friend Brandon's home haunt. Brandon and I are old high school buddies, we even went to prom together! Every Halloween, Brandon and his wife turn their house into a haunted house and invite the general public (for free!) to attend. They get around 200-300 neighbors attending each year and they are semi-famous in their Seattle suburban community for their Halloween home haunt.
"Home haunters" is a fairly big subculture in America, with conventions and newsletters. I'm amazed by the DIY brilliance of these people! It is an impressive act of crafting to build a Disneyland-style animatronic goblin out of a foot massage machine, standard store bought masks, and PVC piping. I meet a couple of other home haunters in Seattle. Such a cool group of people - using their resources and creative energies to entertain strangers and build community. While I was there, I helped decorate Brandon's house, built some of the props in the home haunt, set up some holographic projections (he had a great one of Madame Leota from Disneyland's Haunted Mansion), made warm apple cider for the general public waiting in line for admission, and "acted." That part consisted of hiding in a closet in the downstairs basement and screaming at the top of my lungs (I have a very good scream, to be immodest) when guests walked by. We had about 7 "actors" in total (my husband was a Jason clone, complete with hockey mass and gas-powdered chainsaw). It was so immensely fun, particularly scaring the adults part (it was a family friendly haunt though - "monsters be good" was the code word the guide used when little kids came around, letting me know I should turn down my blood-curdling scream to a hiss)
I was there for about a week which left plenty of time to indulge in my favorite hobby: eating all the food. Seattle is a great food city especially focused on "farm to table" style cooking and the seafood was the freshest, most reasonably priced seafood I've had anywhere. At the top fine dining level, the quality and ingenuity of the food doesn't compare to Los Angeles (let alone NYC), and the asian cuisine is not very good at all. But I had a lot of memorable, delicious food at the bistro price level and lower. And there were so many great food shops, especially chocolate boutiques (btw - if you are on my Xmas card list, I sent a couple of samples of Seattle based Fran's Chocolates to you.)
I went to a couple of restaurants owned by Tom Douglas who has appeared on Top Chef Masters, won the 2012 James Beard Award for Best Restauranteur and is widely considered to be the best chef in the Northwest US. They were decent but overall, unremarkable. Instead, my favorite restaurant was the non-Douglas owned Poppy. This restaurant had a great plating concept, which they called the "thali." Basically, guests chose a main entree, which is served artist palette style alongside 6 or 7 small sides (plus naan bread) whose flavors compliment each other. The food is New American but with a heavy focus on spices, especially spices from India and North Africa.
My friend Brandon raved about an appetizer there called "Spiced Crispies" - basically a bar snack consisting of puffed rice, dried fruit, nuts and spices. We ordered it and OMG, it was so incredibly addictive! I wrote down the identifiable ingredients in order to attempt to recreate it at home. I described the dish to a coworker, who is Indian, and he said "Spiced Crispies" is an Indian cereal mix snack called chivda. There's a whole bunch of different styles of chivda recipes from my google search. The recipe below attempts to recreate the "Spiced Crispies" bar snack I had at Poppy, and is not necessarily authentic chivda.
Its a great snack, one hell of a flavor explosion, crispy because of the puffed rice, sweet from the sugary syrup and raisins, nutty, and so exciting on the palate as the all the spices (cumin, mustard, fennel, poppy, red pepper) burst and pop on your tongue. You should make this with whole spices rather than ground as part of the allure is how distinctive the flavors are as they dance around your mouth. Concept wise, it reminds me of the "sensational gum" whose flavor would change in Charlie and the Chocolate Factor (the gum that was the undoing of Violet Beauregarde). This would be great for any occasion (TV watching, beer drinking, parties) where you crave snacks.
I made a big batch of it today to send to Brandon for Xmas. Here's a picture and the recipe.
Spiced Crispies
6 tablespoons canola or peanut oil
3 teaspoons mustard seed
1.5 teaspoons fennel seed
1.5 teaspoons poppy seed
1.5 teaspoons cumin seed
0.5 teaspoon crushed red pepper (more if you like it spicy)
1.5 teaspoons tart mango powder aka amchur (or a quarter of a lemon, juiced or sumac powder)**
1 teaspoon kosher salt
6 tablespoons corn syrup
4 cups puffed rice cereal (Rice Krispies)
1 cup nuts (I like cashews and peanuts)
0.5 cup pumpkin seeds
3/4 cup golden raisins
** I found tart mango powder (aka amchur) n my local Indian grocery store. It tastes exactly as you would expect, like dried sour mango ground up. If you don't have time to source it, lemon juice or sumac would be fine as a substitute.
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with either a silpat mat or parchment paper.
2. Heat oil on medium high in deep 12-inch pan or dutch oven until it shimmers.
3. Add spices, saute for about a minute until spices are lightly toasted. Add tart mango powder, salt and corn syrup. Cook until corn syrup is bubbly, about 2 mins.
4. Add in remaining ingredients. Stir until coated. Place on cookie sheet and bake 20 mins, tossing occasionally, until nuts are toasted.
ETA: 12/30/201 layers_of_eli dapted this recipe and blogged about it with some gorgeous photography. So thrilled that she liked it http://willowbirdbaking.com/2012/12/28/spiced-crispies-chivda-or-indian-snack-mix/#comments
I went to Seattle around Halloween to help construct and act in my friend Brandon's home haunt. Brandon and I are old high school buddies, we even went to prom together! Every Halloween, Brandon and his wife turn their house into a haunted house and invite the general public (for free!) to attend. They get around 200-300 neighbors attending each year and they are semi-famous in their Seattle suburban community for their Halloween home haunt.
"Home haunters" is a fairly big subculture in America, with conventions and newsletters. I'm amazed by the DIY brilliance of these people! It is an impressive act of crafting to build a Disneyland-style animatronic goblin out of a foot massage machine, standard store bought masks, and PVC piping. I meet a couple of other home haunters in Seattle. Such a cool group of people - using their resources and creative energies to entertain strangers and build community. While I was there, I helped decorate Brandon's house, built some of the props in the home haunt, set up some holographic projections (he had a great one of Madame Leota from Disneyland's Haunted Mansion), made warm apple cider for the general public waiting in line for admission, and "acted." That part consisted of hiding in a closet in the downstairs basement and screaming at the top of my lungs (I have a very good scream, to be immodest) when guests walked by. We had about 7 "actors" in total (my husband was a Jason clone, complete with hockey mass and gas-powdered chainsaw). It was so immensely fun, particularly scaring the adults part (it was a family friendly haunt though - "monsters be good" was the code word the guide used when little kids came around, letting me know I should turn down my blood-curdling scream to a hiss)
I was there for about a week which left plenty of time to indulge in my favorite hobby: eating all the food. Seattle is a great food city especially focused on "farm to table" style cooking and the seafood was the freshest, most reasonably priced seafood I've had anywhere. At the top fine dining level, the quality and ingenuity of the food doesn't compare to Los Angeles (let alone NYC), and the asian cuisine is not very good at all. But I had a lot of memorable, delicious food at the bistro price level and lower. And there were so many great food shops, especially chocolate boutiques (btw - if you are on my Xmas card list, I sent a couple of samples of Seattle based Fran's Chocolates to you.)
I went to a couple of restaurants owned by Tom Douglas who has appeared on Top Chef Masters, won the 2012 James Beard Award for Best Restauranteur and is widely considered to be the best chef in the Northwest US. They were decent but overall, unremarkable. Instead, my favorite restaurant was the non-Douglas owned Poppy. This restaurant had a great plating concept, which they called the "thali." Basically, guests chose a main entree, which is served artist palette style alongside 6 or 7 small sides (plus naan bread) whose flavors compliment each other. The food is New American but with a heavy focus on spices, especially spices from India and North Africa.
My friend Brandon raved about an appetizer there called "Spiced Crispies" - basically a bar snack consisting of puffed rice, dried fruit, nuts and spices. We ordered it and OMG, it was so incredibly addictive! I wrote down the identifiable ingredients in order to attempt to recreate it at home. I described the dish to a coworker, who is Indian, and he said "Spiced Crispies" is an Indian cereal mix snack called chivda. There's a whole bunch of different styles of chivda recipes from my google search. The recipe below attempts to recreate the "Spiced Crispies" bar snack I had at Poppy, and is not necessarily authentic chivda.
Its a great snack, one hell of a flavor explosion, crispy because of the puffed rice, sweet from the sugary syrup and raisins, nutty, and so exciting on the palate as the all the spices (cumin, mustard, fennel, poppy, red pepper) burst and pop on your tongue. You should make this with whole spices rather than ground as part of the allure is how distinctive the flavors are as they dance around your mouth. Concept wise, it reminds me of the "sensational gum" whose flavor would change in Charlie and the Chocolate Factor (the gum that was the undoing of Violet Beauregarde). This would be great for any occasion (TV watching, beer drinking, parties) where you crave snacks.
I made a big batch of it today to send to Brandon for Xmas. Here's a picture and the recipe.
Spiced Crispies
6 tablespoons canola or peanut oil
3 teaspoons mustard seed
1.5 teaspoons fennel seed
1.5 teaspoons poppy seed
1.5 teaspoons cumin seed
0.5 teaspoon crushed red pepper (more if you like it spicy)
1.5 teaspoons tart mango powder aka amchur (or a quarter of a lemon, juiced or sumac powder)**
1 teaspoon kosher salt
6 tablespoons corn syrup
4 cups puffed rice cereal (Rice Krispies)
1 cup nuts (I like cashews and peanuts)
0.5 cup pumpkin seeds
3/4 cup golden raisins
** I found tart mango powder (aka amchur) n my local Indian grocery store. It tastes exactly as you would expect, like dried sour mango ground up. If you don't have time to source it, lemon juice or sumac would be fine as a substitute.
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with either a silpat mat or parchment paper.
2. Heat oil on medium high in deep 12-inch pan or dutch oven until it shimmers.
3. Add spices, saute for about a minute until spices are lightly toasted. Add tart mango powder, salt and corn syrup. Cook until corn syrup is bubbly, about 2 mins.
4. Add in remaining ingredients. Stir until coated. Place on cookie sheet and bake 20 mins, tossing occasionally, until nuts are toasted.
ETA: 12/30/201 layers_of_eli dapted this recipe and blogged about it with some gorgeous photography. So thrilled that she liked it http://willowbirdbaking.com/2012/12/28/spiced-crispies-chivda-or-indian-snack-mix/#comments