Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Recipe for 100 Masal Vada

My daughter’s school celebrated their annual fall festival last weekend. The main attraction of course was the various food booths selling a variety of dishes with an international flavor. I made 100 Masal Vada for the sale. To say they went fast would be an understatement. Several people wanted to know how to make them.



Prep Time:  8 Hours soaking time
                    3 Hours cooking time

Ingredients

Channa dal                       6 cups
Toor dal                            1 cup
Urad dal                            1 cup
Rice flour                          1 cup
Gram flour                        1 cup
Garam masala powder      ½ cup
Red chili powder                ½ cup (as needed)
Salt                                    as needed
Ginger                               3 inch
Garlic                                    12 cloves
Coriander leaves finely chopped  2 cups
Mint leaves finely chopped           2 cups
White onion big                            4 chopped finely
Curry leaf finely chopped             8 springs

Instructions 

Soak channa dal for 8 to 10 hours in water. Drain the water completely and grind coarsely in a food processor. Stop when you can still see a couple of full dals.
Grind ginger and garlic coarsely (separately)
Mix chopped onion, coriander, mint, curry leaf, ground ginger, garlic, rice flour, gram flour, garam masala powder, chili powder and salt to the ground chenna dal.
I divided my channa dal and all ingredients into 4 equal parts and mixed each part separately. So it was easy to mix.


Keep a bowl of water and wet both hands. Make equal sized balls for uniform sized vadas.


Then shape each ball to flat patties of medium thickness.


Heat oil in a pan. Drop each patty into the oil carefully and cook them till they turn golden brown and crispy.


Helpful hints
If you didn’t soak the dal long enough, vada will turn hard
Do not add water while grinding. Adding water will make the vada absorb more oil. Food processor works much better than any grinder or mixer.
Adding the rice flour makes the vada crispy
Adding the gram flour helps the patty bind well so that it will not fall apart when you drop it into the oil.
If you don’t like garlic you can add asafoetida

You can add green chilies instead of red chili powder.