Medhu Vadai with onions and green chilies

Since we only had a few people going on our ski trip, I wanted to make Masala Dosais for dinner one night.  Masala dosais are difficult to make for a big crowd, because you have to make dosais one or two at a time and there tends to be a queue of people waiting for their dosai.

I also wanted to make vadais to go with the dosais.  The biggest fan of South Indian food in our group is my friend, Sanjay.  Sanjay is Maharashtrian, but grew up in Hyderabad, and loves South Indian food.  So anytime I invite him, I try and make something from Tamil Nadu for him.  I was debating between making medhu vadais and masala vadais.  So I asked him and  he promptly chose medhu vadais.  Since I normally serve my medhu vadais with rasam, I decided to switch it up a little bit.  I made them with onions and green chilies, and served it with sambar and coconut chutney instead.

I made the sambar and dosai batter at home.  I also made the vadais at home and warmed them up in the oven before serving them.  I made the masala for the dosai and the chutney up in the mountains.  I think it turned out to be a great meal!  The little bit of batter I had left, we made into uttappams the next day

Here is what you need:

(to make about 24 - 25 vadais)

• 2 cups whole urad dal without skin
• salt to taste
• 2 tsp. jeera
• 2 tsp. whole black pepper
• 1 medium red onion, finely chopped
• 3 - 4 green chilies, chopped
• few curry leaves, chopped
• oil for deep frying

 

 

Here is how I made it:

1. Wash and soak the urad dal for a couple of hours.
2. Grind to a smooth paste without adding too much water.  I probably add a quarter cup of water to make the batter.  Since you are adding onions, make it really thick, because the onions tend to release some water.
3. Heat oil for deep-frying.  Once the oil is hot, reduce heat to medium so that the vadais cook evenly.
4. Add the salt, jeera, pepper, onions, green chilies, and curry leaves.  Mix well.
5. Keep a bowl of water next to you. 
6. I use a sandwich- size ziplog bag to shape the vadais. Wet your hand as well as the ziploc bag.
7. Take some batter (about the size of a big lime) in you hand and put it on the Ziploc bag. 
8. Shape it like a donut with a hole in the middle.
9. Drop this gently into the hot oil.  You can fry a few vadais at a time.  Turn the vadais over gently a couple of times till they turn golden brown.
10. Drain them on some paper towels.

Serve hot with coconut chutney and sambar.