Whilst growing up in Kenya, drying cooked left- over cooked rice in the sun was a regular chore all mums did. Memories of that chore came back to me when my mother in law also dried cooked rice in UK. The dehydrated rice becomes very dry and hard . This is then collected and stored in an air tight jar until you were ready to fry them for a snack called sev mamra. In winter, it’s quite easy to dehydrate the rice by spreading it on a tray and it dries within a day as we have heating on all day. In the summer, you can dry it in the sun as long as it’s away from the birds. An easier way of dehydrating the rice is to spread it evenly in an oven tray and cooking it on a very low heat for several hours (stirring the rice in between. Dehydrating rice in a dehydrator is the modern way of drying out the rice. Rice dehydrated this way can be recooked by adding hot water to it so it’s very popular with people who go camping. My recipe using ready made mamra is here.
Heat the oil and drop a couple of rice flakes in the oil. The oil is ready when the rice puffs up and rises. As soon as the rice puffs up, remove it into a mixing bowl and add salt and turmeric and mix. Next fry the peanuts, almonds and cashews and add to the puffed rice. Finally add the the sev to the mamra and mix well.
Garnish with fresh curry leaves and enjoy the sev mamra snack. You can add chopped onions and a dash of lemon to make the snack taste like bhel. Any left-over snack can be saved in an air tight container up to a week.