Traditionally yours :)

Urad dal vada

Deep fried foods are always welcome in our house. Indian cuisine is rich in oil and south Indian cuisine has some of the best fried food recipes like bajji, yellow dal vada, urad dal (lentil) vada, pappadam, vadam, muruku etc.My mom makes yummy fried stuff very often, my brother and I always fight over the last one :) still we fight when it comes to food. No shop brought food can taste like the home made ones, they have the 'love' added unconditionally.

During the first year Friday's had a fixed lunch menu: sambar, papadam and potato fry (mama's most favorite). Mama would never trade the lunch for anything, even non veg. Sambar is his most favorite curry and I hate it (as usual) but its still the Friday curry in our house and the only thing missing is the papadam.

I have an electric cook top (fully glass) stove in here and it supports only flat bottomed utensils and I cant use the traditional kadais here :(. Flat bottom utensils means lots of oil wastage so I never made any fried stuff :( . Here people use fryers and we did not want to over crowd the too small kitchen of mine. But the craving to have some hot vada or bajji remained because its too cold in here and nothing can keep you warn like them.

Last week when I was talking to my mom I told her about the craving and she said " Why not waste some oil? You will be happy that you finally had some". She made me think. My mom gave me the push this time and I decided to surprise mama the coming weekend with the vada. He was silently craving for some too, just that he wont tell.

Urad dal vada is so simple to make but I like the Masala vada or parupu vada more. When I was in Chennai I used to make small parupu vadas for lunch and they have this lovely aroma and loads of spice. Crunchy parupu vadas are a yum and now I miss them terribly, I wish mom was here to make some for me. I really feel sad when my bro shows off the lovely vadas over Skype :( . Of course I make him a bit more sadder with my pizzas :p

My attempt on vada making started off with soaking the dal first thing in the morning. By 11 am when I had finished making some puliyogare and cut onions, chillies and ginger for the vada I put the dal in the mixer to make the batter. That is when the problem started, the mixer I guess had some gastric trouble for the sounds it produced gave me a fit. Mama came running to check if everything was fine. He knew right away I was in for something. I told him finally. Then we somehow made the batter without breaking the mixer :) 

The batter

My mom always says the consistency of the batter matters a lot. the more watery the more amount of oil the vada will absorb so the batter must be a little thick, which it was:). Since urad dal vada is traditionally made with a hole in-between which I had no idea how to do it, mama the savior jumped in. 

My all-in-all busy frying

He knew how to put the hole and drop them into the hot oil. He always surprises me when it comes to things like this. He has never made a vada in his life before but he knows how to do it. There is always a story behind his 'knowledge' which is too good to hear. I am a big fan of the stories :)

There you go!!  The vada with the HOLE

Mama is this chutney guy, he needs chutney for anything and everything. This time it was very easy for him to demand one and I had to make it. Its always coconut chutney for him. Every time I make some mama will find flaws, he says I make bad-chutneys and will alter them. This time was just like the others :( But he was completely blown off with the vada.

Coconut chutney

I don't remember eating the puliyogare it was only the vadas. I might have consumed around 10, I was still hungry for more but with mama watching and giving out his 'aren't u full?' mocking smile, I had to stop.