Medhu Vadai or Ulundhu Vadai is a popular South Indian snack and break fast dish and is often made on all special occasions and festivals. Best to serve as snack with coffee/ tea or as an appetizer for a party.
My hubby LOVES medhu vada. He orders vada every single time we got out for breakfast or evening snack. I on the other hand don’t enjoy deep fried/oily stuff. I have been making these vadas for so many years, and I have had a lot of failure with medhu vada, I can get the taste, but never the shape. This time I got it some where close to the medhu vada donut shape, but definitely not perfect. But it tastes good.So go ahead and give your shot to make these delicious crucnhy on outside soft inside vadas for pongal 😀
Here’s medhu vada recipe-
Ingredients:-
Whole Urad dhal- 1 cup
Rice flour – 1 table spoon
Onion, chopped- 4 table spoon
Green chillies- 2
Asafetida- ¼ teaspoon
Coriander leaves, chopped- 1 tablespoon
Curry leaves- 1 sprig
Salt – to taste
Oil- to deep fry
Method of preparation:-
1. Soak urad dal for minimum 2 hours. I soaked for 4 hours. Best if you can soak it overnight.
2. Discard water and grind urad dal till you get a fluffy white stiff batter. Add 1-2 tea spoon of water at a time and as and when required. Do not add too much water.
3. Remove the fluffy and smooth dal into a bowl. Now add the rice flour, chopped onions, green chillies, curry leaves and add all these to the batter along with salt and asafetida. Mix well.
4. Heat oil in a deep bottom pan.
5. Wet your right hand well by dipping inside water and take a small ball of batter. And use your thumb to make hole in the middle and drop it in oil, just invert the vada over the oil and slightly shake your fingers. (some people follow banana leaf method where the vadas are shaped on banana leaf and then slide the shaped vadas into hot oil)
6. Now very carefully slide the vadas from your hand into hot oil. Be very careful while doing this and stand as far as possible from hot oil. DEFINITELY no kids around you while you are deep frying the vadas.
7. Fry in medium flame, turn the vadas and fry till both the sides turn crisp and golden brown.
8. Remove from oil and let it sit on kitchen towel for excess oil to be absorbed. repeate the process for rest of the batter.
9. Crunchy hot and delicious vadas are ready to be served. The vadas are best when paired with Chutney and Sambar. DELICIOUS!
My Notes-
1. It is very important to use good quality whole urad dal, for vadas to turn good.
2. If you want the vadas to be puffy and crunchy just like the ones made in restuarants, you can add a pinch of cooking soda to the batter.
3. Grinding the batter with as little water as possible is important, if you add too much water to the batter, then you wont be able to shape the vadas, and they will also tend to suck a lot of oil.
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