Methu Vada is synonymous with any Tamilian festival. Medhu Vada and its close associate Dal Vada (Parupu Vada) will find a permanent place across any tea stall in Tamil Nadu. A cup of tea with Medhu Vada is a simple breakfast / evening snack for many commoners in Chennai. Initially I had great difficulty in making crispy, soft methu vada with a perfect hole at its center. Later I learnt it with little practice and it became a child's place thereafter.
Ingredients:
For Dough:
Urid Dal - 1 cup
Rice - 1 tablespoon
Salt - To taste
Oil - for deep frying
For mixing:
(All the below ingredients need to be finely chopped.)
Green chillies - 2
Ginger - 1 inch size
Coriander leaves - 1 string
Curry leaves - 1 string
Onion - 3 tablespoon / 1 small one
Cumin seeds - 1 teaspoon
Method:
1) Wash Urid Dal well and soak it in water for an hour.
2) Drain the water from soaked urid dal and grind the dal. Add salt and make a fine paste using a grinder / mixer. If required,only add one or two tablespoons of water. Adding too much of water won't help the cause and it would be difficult to prepare it in a round shape.
3) Add the ingredients mentioned above to be mixed with this fine batter. Mix the contents well.
4) Make sure the batter is only light thick to get the perfect soft methu vada.
5) Heat oil in a Kadai / Frying pan.
6) Take another bowl of water and keep it near to your batter pan.
7) Dip your hands in water and grab the batter paste just in the size of a lemon. Dipping your hand into the water avoids the batter getting sticky.
8) In next step, dip your thumb into the center of the batter to make a small hole.
9) Gently drop this vada batter into oil.
10) Repeat these steps for the remaining amount of batter. Each time ensure that you dip your hand into water before dipping it into batter paste. This helps to prepare vada in the perfect shape and also prevents the batter getting sticky around your fingers.
11) In a single round you can fry 3 to 5 vadas depending on the size of your frying pan.
12) When one side is fried, turn the other side and allow it to fry well. Continue this frying process until you see the golden brown colour.
13) When vada is fried well, remove it from oil and transfer it to a plate / bowl. Let the plate / bowl be covered with a kitchen tissue so that it will absorb the excess oil.
14) Now serve the vada hot with coconut chutney or sauce.
Just another method to make Vada:
1) This method is using a plastic paper/ food wrapper.
2) Take a plastic paper in your left hand and grease it using oil.
3) Dip your right hand into water and then take a lemon size of batter from batter bowl.
4) Put this batter to the plastic cover.
5) Gently put a hole in the center of batter using your right hand index finger.
6) Drop slowly to the oil.
