Keera vadai
Every year for a few weeks, my MIL goes through a phase where she probably feels she isn’t feeding us enough (and completely disregards my weighing scale tales) and decides on making weekend snacks (our Friday evenings). Just to reiterate what I have said before in a few posts – we have an elaborate full course (full tummy) meals for lunch on Fridays. Adding to that sin for the last few weeks are these snacks she makes in the evening :). I kinda have 0 resistance power to say NO to such good stuff in life! I regret later when my stomach is uneasily full though! Anywho, my FIL likes keera vadai a lot and the Friday that just passed, MIL made them. The good thing about these evening snacks for me (apart from gorging on them) is that I get to document it properly. And honestly, I have a good memory so through the process of taking pictures & asking her questions about the recipe, I am sure somewhere along I have a keera vadai recipe stacked in my subconscious which will get unleashed when the time is right :). These vadais aren’t hard to make excepting I have never been able to bring myself to do anything with deep frying. But vadais surely may not taste well if baked (and not really sure if they can be baked intact). So, if you are someone who isn’t intimidated by a pot of hot oil, go right ahead and make these. They are yummy and slightly on the sinful side! But hey, it’s got a lot of dal (protein) and keerai (iron) :D.
- 1.5 cups spinach (tightly packed)
- 1 1/4 cups channa dal
- 1/4 cup urad dal
- 6 nos dried red chillies
- 3 nos green chillies
- 1 tsp asafodita
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Soak the channa dal & urad dal for a minimum of 3 hours and drain all the water out.
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Clean, wash and chop the spinach finely.
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In a mixer, throw in the soaked pulses, dried red chillies, green chillies, asafodita & some salt and grind to form a coarse mixture. DO NOT add any additional water.
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Add the spinach to this mixture and combine well.
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Heat a pan/ kadai with oil.
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Make lemon size balls of the mixture and flatten them out to form thin patties.
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Once the oil is heated, deep fry the patties (5-6 at one stretch) till they attain a golden brown colour.
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Drain the excess oil in a paper towel and munch on!
You can use any variety of spinach for this. MIL used arai keerai.
Step wise pictures
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- Soak channa dal & urad dal for 3 hours and then drain all the water.
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- In parallel, clean, wash and chop the spinach.
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- Grind the soaked pulses with some red & green chillies, salt & asafodita in a mixer to form a coarse mixture. Do not add any water.
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- Add the finely chopped spinach to this mixture.
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- Make lemon size balls & flatten it to form thin patties.
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- Heat a kadai with oil & deep fry the vadai till it becomes golden brown in color.
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- Let the vadais cool for a bit on a paper towel so that the extra oil will be drained out.
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- Enjoy the vadai as is or with some coconut chutney/ ketchup!
