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Vada Sambhar is a Karnataka dish in which donut shaped deep-fried black gram vadas or fritters are dunked in sambhar and served. This makes a filling breakfast or can be served as an appetizer or a small meal for kids and adults.
IngredientsÂ
For Vada:
Black Gram / Split Urad Dal – 1 cup
Coconut, finely chopped – 1/4 cupGreen Chillis – 5
Curry Leaves – 15Salt to taste
Oil for deep frying
For Sambhar:
Split Pigeon Peas / Toor Dal – 1/2 cup
Tomatoes – 2
Onions – 2
Tamarind Extract – 2 tsps
Sambhar Powder – 1 tbsp ( I used readymade MTR powder)
Turmeric Powder – 1/4 tsp
Jaggery, powdered – 2 tsps
Coconut, shredded – 1 tbsp
Salt to taste
For Seasoning Sambhar:
Mustard Seeds – 1 tsp
Cumin Seeds – 1/2 tsp
Asafoetida powder – 1/4 tsp
Curry Leaves – 8
Dry Red Chilli – 2
Oil – 2 tsps
For Garnishing:
Fine Sev – 1/2 cup (optional)
Coriander Leaves, chopped – 1/2 cup (optional)
Preparing Sambhar:
- Pressure cook toor dal until soft.
- Cut onions and tomatoes.
- Cook onion and tomato pieces in 4 cups of water.
- Add salt, jaggery powder, turmeric powder, tamarind extract and sambhar powder.
- Now add cooked toor dal.
- Let it boil for 15 to 20 minutes, on medium flame, until the quantity reduces to 3/4rth and the sambhar thickens.
- Now add shredded coconut and boil for 2 minutes.
- For seasoning, heat oil in a pan, add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, dry red chilli pieces and curry leaves.
- When mustard seeds start spluttering, add asafoetida powder. Mix well and add this to cooked sambhar.
- The sambhar is now ready.
- Take a large bowl, add 1 cup of the prepared sambhar and 2 cups of boiling water. Keep aside to soak the vadas.
Preparing Vada:
- Wash urad dal thoroughly and soak in water for 2-3 hours.
- Shred green chillis and curry leaves.
- Drain all the water from soaked urad dal.
- Blend urad dal and salt into smooth fluffy batter using very little water. The consistency of this batter must be such that if you drop a small amount of batter in a cup of water, the batter must float or if you scoop out some batter with your fingers, it must hold shape.
- Transfer the batter onto a mixing bowl.
- Add chopped coconut, shredded green chillis and curry leaves. Mix until well combined.
- Heat oil in a pan.
- Wet your both your palms and using one palm scoop out ping-pong sized portion of the batter from the edge where the batter is in contact with the mixing bowl.
- Place the scooped batter on the other palm and flatten slightly to round shape and make a hole in the centre to resemble a doughnut.
- Slide this carefully into hot oil.
- Set the flame to medium and fry until crisp and golden brown.
- Immediately drop them in the bowl containing sambhar+boiling water mixture. Let it soak for 2-3 minutes.
Serving:
- Pour hot sambhar into serving bowls.
- Remove vadas, one-by-one, from sambhar+boiling water mixture and dunk 1 or 2 hot vadas in each bowl containing sambhar, depending on the size of the bowl and quantity of sambhar.
- Serve hot garnished with fine sev and coriander leaves.
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