Selroti Tai Karahi - Iron

The dome in the middle is the whole design. Selroti batter is poured in a ring, and on a flat pan it spreads and closes into a disc before it sets. Here the raised centre holds the ring open while the oil pools in the channel around it, so the rice batter fries into the shape it is supposed to have: an even circle, crisp at the edge, soft through the middle, with a hole you can hang it by. It is heavy iron, which is what a long frying session needs. Selroti goes in at a steady, fairly low heat, and a batch of twenty will pull the temperature out of a thin aluminium pan fast enough that the later ones come out pale and oily. This one has the weight to hold its heat, so the last selroti fries much like the first. The two ring handles are there because a pan of hot oil is not something to lift by one side. It is not only a selroti pan. The same shape fries puri, jalebi, sinki pakoda and anything else that wants a deep well of oil, and plenty of households keep it on the stove year round. It is uncoated iron rather than non-stick, which is normal for a Nepali tai. Season it before the first use and it builds its own dark, slick surface over the years, the way the tai in your grandmother’s kitchen did.