Friday, July 25, 2008

Masal Vadai

Masal vadai is an evening snack in south India especially Tamilnadu.
When we were in Chennai, I always admire a masal vadai sold in a particular shop in chennai.The shop is a one man show .One day I asked him his secret in his crispy masal vadai. He told me the following recipe and it is a fool proof recipe.
His recipe differs from the normal home made masal vadai by adding yellow peas dhal along with channa dhal and by adding a handful of unground dhal. (I added green split peas).
No wonder that the man maintains a huge customer group and he managed to sell his vadai , paniyaram , bajji for only one Rupee per piece(in year 2006).For your information he maintained strict hygiene also, I mean you can see him making those snacks even from outside.



A plate of masal vadai with coconut chutney.
Ingredients:
yellow/green split peas(pattani paruppu in tamil)-1 cup
Channa dhal/ Bengal gram lentil - 1 cup
salt - 1 tsp
green chilies - 3 (chopped)
fresh ginger(finely chopped) - 1 inch
onion (chopped) - 1/2 cup
curry leaves- 1 sprig
coriander leaves (chopped)- 2 tbsp
cinnamon - 1 inch
fennel seeds (peruncheeragam/ sombu)- 1/2 tbsp
dry red chillies - 3
garam masal powder - 1 tsp
cooking oil-250 ml. for frying


Preparation:
Soak both the dhal for 1 hour in water.
Take out a handful of soaked dhal and keep aside.(This gives a wonderful crispy texture to the vadai.)
Grind coarse mixture with red chillies, salt, garam masal powder,cinnamon,fennel seeds and almost no water.
Add the left over dhal,coarse dhal mixture,chopped onions,chopped ginger,chopped cilantro, and curry leaves.
Mix well .
Take a small ball of the mixture (in the size of a lemon), slightly flatten in the palm of your hand then place in the hot oil .
Deep fry on both sides to a golden brown color to mild red color.
Remove the masal vadai , drain oil by placing over a tissue paper .


Serving suggestions:

Makes 15 big size masal vadai.
Serve hot with Coconut chutney


Note:

You can make the mixture and keep the entire preparation inside the refrigerator for 3 days and use whenever needed.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This looks yummy viki..will surely try...

Anonymous said...

This looks yummy viki..will surely try...

anjali said...

Wanted to have masala vadai with tea today.Came across your receipe.I always do with chana daal only..will try with patani parrupu too..

Vikis Kitchen said...

Thank you friends.
Anjali: Yes, adding pattani paruppu (dried split green / yellow peas) will give the exact taste of restaurant made masaal vadai. we can get this vadai in small hotels or tea stalls in Tamil nadu and it will make a good side dish with variety rice (puliyotharai, lemon rice etc). Normally we won't add that dhal + garam masal flavor and it will be called paruppu vadai or aamai vadai.

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