Before getting married to an absolute foodie husband, I had been living in hostels. So it goes without saying that one of the most important things that I always missed during my stay in the hostels was the aroma and goodness of all the goodies my mom used to dish out from her kitchen.
Like most of you, I am firmly convinced that my mom is the best cook in the world!! :).
So when I set up my own kitchen one of the first things that I tried out had to be the parippu vada which had for years managed to reign as our family favourite. So it was only natural that my first recipe in my food blog had to come from her.
This one’s for you mom.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup Chana dal (split Bengal gram)
1 medium sized onion
2- 3 green chillies (more or less if you want it hotter or milder)
1" Ginger piece
1-2 Whole red chillies
Few sprigs of Curry Leaves
Salt to taste
Oil for deep frying
Soak the chana dal for 3-4 hours till it becomes soft. Drain the water in a colander and let it dry in the open for half an hour so that all the extra water drains off.
Dice the onion, chillies and the ginger into cubes or bite size pieces. You don’t have to be very precise as all these are anyway going to be ground into a coarse paste.
Now comes the crucial part. Put all the ingredients including the salt and dry grind in the grinder just for 15-20 seconds. There is no need to add water while grinding as the water absorbed by the chana dal would be sufficient to grind it along with the other ingredients into a thick coarse mixture.
If you grind it too much then the vadas will turn out soggy. At the same time the mixture should be thick enough to be made into vadas. Let some pieces of the ingredients be visible in the mix. This would make the vada crispy and let the flavour of ginger n onion to melt in your mouth.
Take out the mix from the grinder in a vessel and hand mix it.
Now heat oil in a vessel (kadhai) with heat turned on full.
When the oil is heated, make balls out of the mixture and flattten it from the centre. Tap the edges so that it slopes away. The discs thus formed should be approximately 1 ½ - 2 inches in diameter.
Lower the vadas into the oil one by one.The oil should be hot enough for the vadas to come sizzling to the top. Fry the vadas till the lower side is done and then turn it over. You may want to reduce the heat at this point so that the inside of the vada is also cooked.
Let the vadas turn properly brown before taking them out and place it on tissue paper. This would take care of the excess oil on the vadas.
This can be served hot and piping with chutneys or tomato sauce and I am sure no one would mind a hot cup of ginger flavoured tea to wash it all down!
And of course I also discovered that they don’t lie when they say “the way to a man’s heart is through his tummy”.
So just in case any of you have designs for bowling your hubbies put on your Marco Polo hats and discover the shortest way into their hearts.
Like most of you, I am firmly convinced that my mom is the best cook in the world!! :).
So when I set up my own kitchen one of the first things that I tried out had to be the parippu vada which had for years managed to reign as our family favourite. So it was only natural that my first recipe in my food blog had to come from her.
This one’s for you mom.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup Chana dal (split Bengal gram)
1 medium sized onion
2- 3 green chillies (more or less if you want it hotter or milder)
1" Ginger piece
1-2 Whole red chillies
Few sprigs of Curry Leaves
Salt to taste
Oil for deep frying
Soak the chana dal for 3-4 hours till it becomes soft. Drain the water in a colander and let it dry in the open for half an hour so that all the extra water drains off.
Dice the onion, chillies and the ginger into cubes or bite size pieces. You don’t have to be very precise as all these are anyway going to be ground into a coarse paste.
Now comes the crucial part. Put all the ingredients including the salt and dry grind in the grinder just for 15-20 seconds. There is no need to add water while grinding as the water absorbed by the chana dal would be sufficient to grind it along with the other ingredients into a thick coarse mixture.
If you grind it too much then the vadas will turn out soggy. At the same time the mixture should be thick enough to be made into vadas. Let some pieces of the ingredients be visible in the mix. This would make the vada crispy and let the flavour of ginger n onion to melt in your mouth.
Take out the mix from the grinder in a vessel and hand mix it.
Now heat oil in a vessel (kadhai) with heat turned on full.
When the oil is heated, make balls out of the mixture and flattten it from the centre. Tap the edges so that it slopes away. The discs thus formed should be approximately 1 ½ - 2 inches in diameter.
Lower the vadas into the oil one by one.The oil should be hot enough for the vadas to come sizzling to the top. Fry the vadas till the lower side is done and then turn it over. You may want to reduce the heat at this point so that the inside of the vada is also cooked.
Let the vadas turn properly brown before taking them out and place it on tissue paper. This would take care of the excess oil on the vadas.
This can be served hot and piping with chutneys or tomato sauce and I am sure no one would mind a hot cup of ginger flavoured tea to wash it all down!
And of course I also discovered that they don’t lie when they say “the way to a man’s heart is through his tummy”.
So just in case any of you have designs for bowling your hubbies put on your Marco Polo hats and discover the shortest way into their hearts.
1 comment:
Good work you are doing!
Choku
P.S.- Why don't you post some Chinese recipes on your blog?
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