Longing for restaurant style masal vadai? here is the recipe that is sure to please your yearning tastebuds. It is not very hard to prepare these spicy tasty cruncy vadais. I used the Cuisinart 11 cup custom pro food processor to grind the soaked dal. You can use any mixer/grinder to grind the dal. Before I bought this food processor, I ground dal using either ultra grinder or the preethi chef pro plus. I have added one secret ingredient that will sure make these vadais more crunchy. Here is the recipe.
Ingredients:
Toor dal/Tuar dal - one and half cups
Channa dal - half cup
Moong dal (yellow) - half cup
Onion - 1 large - chopped finely
Green chillis - 6 to 7 (increase or decrease the number of chillis are per your taste)
Asafoetida powder - 2 pinches
Curry leaves - chopped - handful
Coriander leaves - chopped - handful (optional)
Ginger - finely chopped - 1 tablespoon
Sonf - fennel seeds - 1 tablespoon
Salt - as per taste
Oil for deep frying
Method:
Soak toor dal and channa dal together in water for about 3 hours. Drain water and keep it aside.
Squeeze out excess water from the chopped onion and keep it aside.
Grind the curry leaves, green chillis, ginger, sonf, and salt in a food processor.
Drain the water completely from the soaked dal and add it in the food processor.
Pulse for few times, until the dal is well ground. You can use any grinder/mixer to grind the dal. In that case you might have to sprinkle water to grind. Use only very little water.
Transfer the content to a bowl and add the onion, coriander leaves and the moong dal. You don't have to soak the moong dal. Just add all these ingredients and mix well. You should be able to make small balls out of the prepared base.
Heat oil in a kadai. Meanwhile, make small balls and flatten the ball and arrange it in a plate. You can fry 3 to 4 vadas at a time.
Fry in medium heat only. Flip the vadais while frying. Once the vadais are golden brown, drain excess oil and transfer it to a bowl lined with kitchen paper towel.
Repeat until all the dal is fried.
Serve it piping hot or just warm with/without chutney. Enjoy these vadas with a cup of coffee or tea.
