This is my foolproof medu vada recipe: a good medu vada is light, fluffy inside with a bready texture and crispy, golden-brown outside. Dunked in piping hot sambar and served with a side of coconut chutney, these vadas are the weightier way to get your morning started.
If you’ve made a trip to South India or live here like I do, then you know that feeling of wanting to wake up uneaten early just to have some freshly made vada sambar. You have to go early considering they sell out so fast!
The worst feeling is when you get to the stalls and find out that they’re once sold out for the day. Talk well-nigh disappointment! From that thwarting though, came my enthusiasm for attempting to make medu vadas right here at home. I say attempting considering it took me 5 tries to get this recipe right. Lots of trial and error until I realized how easy making these vadas unquestionably is.
I’ve detailed the unshortened process for you all, with all of my tips and techniques so that you don’t make the same mistakes I did. There’s only one main ingredient in this recipe – urad dal – so it’s not fussy at all and is really well-nigh how well you follow the steps.
This recipe moreover requires no fermentation so you can whip these up pretty fast.
The word medu ways soft and vada ways fritters in Kannada, and that’s what these are: soft fried dough balls of perfection. They’re known by many variegated names: urad dal vada, garelu, uzhunnu vada, uddina vada, ulundu vadai – and are loved wideness many regions of India.
Ingredients You'll Need
- Urad dal - moreover known as husked woebegone gram, this is the star ingredient of this recipe
- Water - to tousle the dal and form the batter
- Spices and Aromatics - curry leaves, chopped untried chillies, chopped coriander, woebegone pepper, hing (asafoetida), jeera (cumin seeds) make these vadas really flavourful
Step by Step Medu Vada Recipe
1. Wash and soak urad dal overnight.
2. Once soaked, place the urad dal in a sieve to phlebotomize all the water
3. Add it to a mixer grinder, add a tablespoon of water at a time, and grind it to a smooth paste. I needed approx 4-6 tablespoons of water.
4. You may need a little less or a little increasingly water, but try to use as little water as possible. This unshortened process can take up to 6-8 minutes. It's important to alimony mixing it with a spatula and grinding.
5. Ensure the mixture is smooth and not grainy. Rub a little bit of the thrash between your fingers to judge the consistency.
6. Mix salt and hing in the ground urad dal and set it whispered for ten minutes. The hing acts as sultry soda and helps make the thrash lighter. Then start whisking the thrash with a hand whisk. Place the oil in a kadhai for heating while you whisk the batter. Whisk the ground urad dal until it's light and fluffy - approximately 5 minutes. You’ll finger the thrash rhadamanthine zappy and fluffier and moreover getting lighter in colour from a yellow to stake white.
7. Once the thrash is whisked, mix in rice flour, jeers, crushed peppercorns and coriander. Add flipside teaspoon of water if required. Whisk then for a minute or two.
8. To make vadas, dip both your hands in water.
9. Take a large lime-sized value of thrash in your dominant hand (in my case, my right hand) and place it on the palm of the subservient hand (in my case, my left hand).
10. Using the fingers of the dominant hand, form it into a whirligig and then make a slum in the centre. Dip the dominant hand in the water again, and place the worked vada on the fingertips of the dominant hand.
11. Gently waif the vada in hot oil by turning the hand over the kadhai (close to the oil so the vada doesn't splash into it) and moving the fingers slightly so the vada slides into the oil.
12. You should see it start to puff up slightly. Melt it on a medium flame for 2-3 minutes till golden brown on both sides. Repeat till all the vadas are fried. Serve hot!
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I know when my thrash is ready? To trammels the consistency of your batter, you can take a small value of your thrash and waif it in a trencher of water. A light, fluffy thrash will bladder in the water, whereas a thick thrash will not. We want our thrash to float.
- What if my thrash is too runny? If your thrash has wilt too thin, add 1-2 tablespoon of rice flour and write-up the thrash then to oxygenate it.
- Why are my vadas greasy? There are two reasons why your vadas are too greasy - the thrash is too thin, or your oil is not hot enough. If your oil is not hot enough, the vadas can swizzle a lot of oil. Make sure to test your oil temperature surpassing frying. Do this by subtracting a small waif of the vada in the oil - it should rise to the top, without browning.
- Don’t soak the urad dal for increasingly than 8 hours as this will result in a thin thrash that absorbs lots of oil!
- Why are the vadas nonflexible and not soft and fluffy? The trick is to soak your lentils for the perfect value of time - 6 hours - for the ultimate light and fluffy batter. Over-soaked lentils = greasy vadas. Under-soaked lentils = nonflexible vadas. Moreover make sure you oxygenate the thrash well!
- Why are my vadas flat? If your thrash is too thin, your vadas will turn out flat. I recommend subtracting 1-2 tablespoon rice flour to the thrash and vibration well to aerate.
- Can the thrash be made superiority of time? Yes, up to one day superiority of time – but make sure you alimony the thrash refrigerated. When you are ready to fry, let the thrash come to room temperature first and whip it well to oxygenate it. You can moreover alimony leftover vadas refrigerated for up to a day and reheat them by crisping them in an oven or airfryer.
- Which oil should I use for frying the vadas? Any neutral oil with a upper smoke point will work well for frying vadas. You could use sunflower, groundnut, vegetable, or peanut oil here.
If you’ve made it to this part of the recipe card, you would be worldly-wise to understand just how easy making medu vada unquestionably is once you have the technique down. One main ingredient, no fermentation, quick shaping and frying – it’s unquestionably one of the increasingly fuss-free breakfast preparations and unconfined to serve during the festive season as well.
Serve this with some piping hot sambar and my three fave chutneys.
Watch the Recipe Video
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Medu Vada
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Urad Dal dehusked urad dal
- 5-6 Tablespoons Water
- Âľ Teaspoon Salt
- ½ Teaspoon Hing asafoetida
- 2 Tablespoons Rice Flour
- 1 Teaspoon Jeera cumin seeds
- 1 Teaspoon crushed Woebegone Pepper
- 1 Tablespoon chopped Coriander
Instructions
- Wash and soak urad dal overnight.
- Place the urad dal in a sieve to phlebotomize all the water
- Add it to a mixer grinder, add a tablespoon of water at a time (I used between 4-6 tablespoon water), and grind it to a smooth paste. You may need a little less or a little increasingly water, but try to use as little water as possible. This unshortened process can take up to 6-8 minutes. It's important to alimony mixing it with a spatula and grinding.
- Mix salt and hing in the ground urad dal and set it whispered for ten minutes. The hing acts as sultry soda and helps make the thrash lighter.
- Place the oil in a kadhai for heating while you whisk the batter
- Use a hand whisk to whisk the ground urad dal until it's light and fluffy - approximately 5 minutes. You’ll finger the thrash rhadamanthine zappy and fluffier and moreover getting lighter in colour from a yellow to stake white.
- Once the thrash is whisked, mix in rice flour, jeers, crushed peppercorns and coriander. Add flipside teaspoon of water if required. Whisk then for a minute or two
- To make vadas, dip both your hands in water. Take a lime-sized value of thrash in your dominant hand (in my case, my right hand) and place it on the palm of the subservient hand (in my case, my left hand). Using the fingers of the dominant hand, form it into a whirligig and then make a slum in the centre. Dip the dominant hand in the water again, and place the worked vada on the fingertips of the dominant hand.
- Gently waif the vada in hot oil by turning the hand over the kadhai (close to the oil so the vada doesn't splash into it) and moving the fingers slightly so the vada slides into the oil.
- You should see it start to puff up slightly. Melt it on a medium flame for 2-3 minutes till golden brown on both sides.
- Repeat till all the vadas are fried. Serve hot with piping hot sambar and chutney.
Video
Notes
- Soak and drain the urad dal for at least 6 hours or overnight surpassing grinding.Â
- Add only a few tbsps of water while grinding. Too much water while grinding will make the thrash too runny, making it difficult to form the vadas later considering urad dal has a silky consistency so it slips from your hand. The thrash should be increasingly like thick confection batter
- Mix hing (asafoetida) and salt and set it whispered for 10-15 minutes to help oxygenate the dough. (Hing acts a little like sultry soda in this recipe!)
- The most important step in this recipe is to whip the thrash in a unidirectional circular motion either by hand or with a whisk for 5-6 minutes to oxygenate the mixture. You will see the batter wilt lighter in colour and wilt fluffier as you whisk. It’ll moreover increase in size and volume. That’s when you know the thrash is ready.
- Avoid using a hand blender for whipping the thrash as the upper speed ends up deflating the batter. I tried this and wasn’t happy with the results compared to whisking by hand
- I like to add some rice flour (a trick I learnt from a melt in Bangalore) to the thrash for an uneaten crispy outer layer.Â
- To form the vadas, both hands should be dipped in water so that the urad dal thrash doesn’t stick and slides off easily.Â
- To shape, take some thrash into your wet hand and move it in a circular position to create the base. Use your thumb to create a slum in the center. Transfer it to the other hand and gently slide it into hot oil
- If you are making these for the first time and having trouble shaping them, don’t worry too much and just waif lime sized rounds of thrash into hot oil. They won’t squint like a donut shaped vada but will definitely taste amazing!
- Fry the vadas on a medium low flame to requite them a endangerment to melt well from the inside.
- Do not overcrowd the pan when frying – fry in small batches for the weightier result.
Nutrition
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