Medhu Vadai

An authentic South Indian breakfast item ! No celebratory breakfast is complete without the awesome combination of idli, vada, pongal. It is a South Indian fritter, light and fluffy, shaped like a donut and made from udad dal lentils. Tastes good with sambar and coconut chutney.

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Ingredients:

Whole white urad dal – 1 cup

Rice flour – 1 tbsp

Oil to deep fry

Onion – 1 big

Green chillies – 2 (chopped into pieces)

Curry leaves – 1 sprig (chopped)

Coriander leaves – 2 sprigs (chopped)

Whole Peppercorns – 1/2 tsp (optional)

Ginger chopped – 1 tsp

Salt – 1/2 tsp or as required

Preparation:

Wash urad dal thoroughly and soak for two hours.

Drain and grind urad dal using very less water, in a wet grinder. If you are using mixie, use ice water for grinding to avoid heat generation. Grind as a thick fluffy batter by sprinkling very little water only when needed. Keep adding just 1/2 tbsp of water at a time to grind. To check if it has the right consistency, take a bowl of water. Drop 1/2 tsp of the ground batter into the water. The batter should float on the water and not sink. If it floats, you can remove the batter and transfer to a bowl.

Add chopped onions, ginger, peppercorns, chopped green chillies, chopped curry leaves, coriander leaves, salt and add it to the batter.

Heat enough oil to deep fry the vadas.

Check the temperature of the oil by dropping a small pinch of batter. If the batter rises immediately to the top, the temperature of the kadai is right. Now, reduce the temperature to medium flame and start dropping vadas carefully.

Take some water in a bowl, dip your fingers. Scoop out small ball size of vada batter with your wet fingers, flatten slightly, and make a hole and gently slid it into the hot oil. When both the sides turn golden brown, take the vadas out of the oil. You can fry 3 to 4 vadas at a time depending on the amount of oil. Serve with coconut chutney or sambar.

Notes: If the vada batter is not thick and is a bit watery, add some more rice flour to it. Do not soak the udad dal for more than 2 hours.