This is my entry for the Weekend Breakfast Blogging event, No. 15.

I thought that this would be a good time to show how to read the tabular recipes at the same time as showing how to make these delectable bajjis using up some leftover rice and a standard can of cream style corn.

The full recipe card is at the bottom of the post. For clarity during the explanation, I have cut it in two, and brightly colored each block so that you can follow along. Refer to the full recipe card to see how everything fits together. (Also note that clicking on any image will bring up a larger image, so you can see things in greater detail.)

Starting at the top left, the blue block tells us our first step: take the ingredients to its left (i.e. two cups of cold cooked leftover rice) and spread it out on a plate; this is to make sure that it is dry, not clammy, and to separate out the grains.

Moving to the right, we see that the yellow block spans the lavender block below the blue one as well, so we know we have to complete the stuff in the lavender block before we can move on to the yellow block. The lavender block contains the maida and other dry ingredients, including some spices. These have to be mixed together well.

Now we can move on to the yellow block, which mixes the rice and the flour mixture (blue and lavender blocks) together. This is a very important step, because the flour mixture coats each grain of rice to keep them separate; if you first mixed the wet and dry ingredients together, and then tried to add the rice you would end up with a rice mush, and if you first added the rice to the wet ingredients, and then tried to mix that with the dry, you would have a terrible time trying to get rid of the lumps.

Moving on to the next block, we see that the rose block extends beyond the yellow, so we go back to the next block below the lavender, i.e. the peach block, before moving on to the burnt orange block to its right. The peach block has some preparation instructions for the vegetables, and then everything should be mixed all together with the contents of the can of cream style corn.

The white block below just contains milk, and now finally we have all the parts that are needed to proceed with the rose block, which requires us to mix everything thoroughly. Now we can move on to the next section below.

Glancing through the steps, it becomes obvious that we are making a tempering, a tadka or a popu or a talimpu. Soaking the dhals for a few minutes in water (lavender block) before adding to the tempering ensures that they will fry up to a crispy crunch under the teeth; slicing the curry leaves (blue block) will help them disperse their flavor evenly through the batter.

So, we follow the familiar path in creating the tempering: heat the oil in a small pan, add the seeds (rose block), wait for them to splutter, then add the dhal (burnt orange block), and when these start to brown, we add the curry leaves (green block)

What remains now - if we look at the full recipe card below - is to combine tempering with the flour-rice-sweetcorn-milk mixture, and then to start shallow frying spoonsful of the batter. We've found the best heat to be somewhere between medium and medium high, but each stove differs, so play around with it a little. You want the outsides to become golden brown and crispy, while the insides should be cooked through and creamy when you taste it.

We served it with homemade ginger chutney, but it would go well with most other chutneys as well.