Medu vada with tomato chutney.

Medu Vada with Tomato chutney

With some twist of moong daal

Medu vada is a South Indian fritter made from Vigna mungo (black lentil or urad dal). It is usually made in a doughnut shape, with a crispy exterior and soft interior. It has so many names like Uddina vade, Medhu vada, Uddi vada, Minapa garelu, Uzhunnu ...

It serves with warm sambar and coconut/ tomato or in room temperature.

Main ingredients in this is Urad dal (Split Black gram), but here i m presenting my style of medu vada with some twist of moong daal.

For 4 people :

Ingredients for vadas :

2 cups white urad daal (split black lentil)

1 cup moong daal (split mung beans )

1/2 tsp coriander powder

1/2 tsp garam masala

Salt according to taste

Coriander leaves

Curry leaves

Vegetable oil for frying

Ingredients for tomato chutney :

2 large ripped tomatoes, chopped

1 medium onion chopped

2 cloves garlic

1 tsp urad dal

1 tsp chana dal

¼ tsp methi seeds / fenugreek seeds optional

3 kashmiri dried red chilli if you dont have use 1 tsp of normal red chilli powder

1 tsp of coconut powder optional

1tsp of roasted crushed peanuts

¼ tsp turmeric powder / haldi

½ tsp sugar

salt to taste

For tempering :

2 tsp oil

½ tsp mustard seeds / rai

½ tsp urad dal

pinch of hing /asafoetida

few curry leaves

Method for tomato chutney

Take a pan add urad daal, chana daal methi daana and red chilli fry them for a minute add onion and fry till light golden brown in colour add tomato,garlic ginger, haldi except salt and sugar. Take out of all them from pan and transfer to the grinder and add coconut, peanut with salt and sugar and make smooth paste.

Make tempering with one tsp of oil,some mustard seeds, heeng, urad daal some curry leaves and 1/4 spoon of red chilli powder. Spread this tadka all over on chutney. Its ready.

Method for vadas.

Soak 2 cups of urad daal atleast 4-5 hours. And moong daal atleast 2 hours. Drain both add one cup water and keep them into the fridge to chill.

After half n hour drain all water completely. Add all daal into the blender add salt and half cup cold water then blend.

Add more water in between if needed. Grind the batter till it looks fluffy and smooth.

Once you get smooth and fluffy batter transfer the batter into the bowl and beat the batter clockwise with the help of your fingers. This makes batter more fluffy and it gives more crunchiness to your vadas during frying.

Once you get fluffiness in your batter, its time to check your batter is ready or not. Take a bowl with water and drop a small ball into the water if ball float into the water it means your batter is ready. If not it means you need to beat batter for more time. Once it done.

Add coriander masala, garam masala and chopped coriander leaves or curry leaves mix all.

Now how to make vadas. Take a deep kadhai (wok) or pan add enough oil for frying.

I will share with you a very easy technique for medu vadas because through fingers and hand its not easy for everyone but with my technique you can make it very easy.

Take a round shape steel or any metal bowl.

Turn around and dip the base of bowl into the water then dip you fingers into the water and take small portion of batter and keep on the bottom of bowl, make ball and slighty flatten the ball with your fingers. Then dip a finger into the water and make hole in the center.

Now turn the bowl and dip into the hot oil (oil should not be too much hot) ensure it is hot enough. Once you dip the bowl into the oil shake your hands little bit you will see within a minute vada will leave the base of bowl and will move freely into the oil. You can take any steel glass too for this technique. Use glass base for making and shape of vadas. Do it carefully.

Here is another technique

You can make vadas with the help of piping bag. Pour all the batter carefully into the piping bag and make a enough hole on the tip of piping bag. Squeeze enough batter into the oil in round shape. Just like donuts. And fry.

Fry them on a medium flame till they gets golden brown in colour and crisp.

Serve with tomato chutney and enjoy.

Some tips

Do not use more water all together during grinding into the batter keep check the batter in between and add water in parts if needed.

Do not add more salt during grinding because salt makes batter runny. Add sufficient salt according to taste after blending.

If your batter becomes runny add some rice flour and beat again. If you dont have rice flour add some semolina. Not too much ( 1 or 2 spoon will be enough) because semolina has rising nature.

Enjoy 😊