I’m still alive.* I’m visiting my parents in Illinois and I wrote down a recipe that I’m never going to use because it involves deep frying and that’s scary. But maybe you’ll use it. And I still like the idea of knowing theoretically how to make it.
Dahee is just yogurt in Hindi. I don’t know what vada means. Fried goodness? I pronounce it thiy wah-rah, but I could be mangling it.
Ingredients
- 1 cup urad dahl
- 1/2 cup mung dahl
- 1/2 inch of ginger
- 1 jalapeno (take the seeds out if you’re a wuss)
- Salt to taste
- yogurt
- sweet and sour chutney
- cilantro chutney
Directions
- Mix the urad dahl and the mung dahl together and soak in cold water for 5-6 hours.
- Drain the water from the mixed dahls after your five or six hours are up.
3. Blend together the dahls, the ginger, the jalapeno, and a splash of water. You want the mixture as thick as possible, so don’t make the splash of water too big.
4. Here’s the terrifying part: heat up a few inches of canola oil in a pan you use for deep frying. The oil is hot enough when the mixture you created in step three immediately sizzles upon release into the oil. Check the temperature by dropping a small gumball size spoonful into the oil. When it’s hot enough, drop in large gumball size spoonfuls.
5. Flip the fried nuggets over when they’re light golden brown, after approximately 3 minutes or so.
6. When the other side of the vada is a light golden brown color as well, place them on napkins on top of newspapers to let the excess oil seep out.
7. After the balls are cool, soak them in warm water for five minutes. This will get off even more oil and make them softer.
8. Then soak them in cold water for five minutes to get even more oil off.
9. Squeeze the excess water out of the vada.
10. Mix a bit of salt with yogurt. You can also just add the salt directly on to the vada if you want. Don’t put them in the mixture before you fry it though because then the vadas soak up too much oil.
11. Generously pour the salted yogurt over the vadas.
12. Add a bit of cayenne pepper and brown chutney and green chutney.
Optional Additions
- You can add raisins to the mixture before you fry it.
- You can add peppercorns to the mixture before you fry it. But that sounds terrible in my opinion.
*(mostly)
Is this a side or main course/meal type of dish.
Mostly a side, but I definitely ate it for lunch. 🙂
I live in northern Illinois, so that is cool that you are in Illinois right now. It is nice of you to visit your family during the holidays. I bet they appreciate it. Thank you for your blog. I always enjoy your posts. Margaret Atwood looks interesting, as it looks like she likes to write about the human condition, which I like to read about from time to time and then relate it to my own journey in this life in the cosmos. Suffering leads to spiritual growth is something I have told myself for many years now. Growing spiritually and having a purpose in life are things that help me get through each day, as well as increasing wisdom, and sometimes listening to music helps as well, along with companionship with other humans. The financial part of your blog reeled me in, but I stay to gain insight of the human condition through what you are feeling by the words you type. Again, thank you for your blog and the sincerity in your writing. Have many good days,
Mark
Thanks for the kind comment!
Hmmmm….looks good of course. The controversy is the high heating of the oil. When certain oils get too hot they create free radicals. I think I would bake them.
I asked my mom about baking and she made a face and said the texture and taste wouldn’t be the same. She doesn’t recommend it.
This is my favorite dish, can eat it any time a day… 🙂
🙂