Vadacurry recipe
Ingredients
To make vada
- 1 cup channa dal
- 2 dry red chillies
- 1.5 tsp fennel seeds
- Water (To soak)
To make the gravy
- 4 tbsp Oil
- 1 inch Cinnamon
- 5 no.s Cloves
- 1 large Bayleaf
- 2 Green Cardamom
- 1 tsp Fennel seeds
- 1 Onion (medium sized)
- 1 tsp Salt (add to taste)
- A few Curry leaves
- 2 Green chillies
- 1 tsp Ginger paste
- 1.5 tsp Garlic paste
- 1 Tomato (medium sized)
- A few Mint leaves
- 2 tsp Red chilli powder
- 1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
- 2.5 cups Water
- Oil (to shallow fry)
- 1 tbsp brown Sugar (optional)
To make the coconut paste
- 3 tbsp Grated Coconut
- 1 tsp fennel seeds
- 1/4 tsp poppy seeds or kasa kasa
- 1/4 cup Water (as required)
Instructions
- Wash the channa dal a couple of times and soak it with enough water to cover it and about an inch higher than it for about 3 hours or over night.
- Strain the water completely and coarsest grind the channa dal along with dry red chilies and fennel seeds (quantity mentioned under “to make vada”).
- Heat a frying pan with enough oil to shallow fry the Vadas.
- Make small balls of vada mixture in your hand and shallow fry the ground vada mix until crispy for about a minute on medium heat. (Try not fry it until browned)
- Drain the fried vada and transfer it to a paper towel and keep it ready.
- Now that our Vadas are ready, to make the vada curry, take a wide pan, add oil, once hot add in the whole garam masalas - bay leaf, cinnamon stick, cloves, green cardamom and fennel seeds.
- Allow it to sizzle in the hot oil for about 30 seconds. Next add the finely chopped onions and some salt and cook the onions until soft.
- Next, add in the green chillies, curry leaves, ginger garlic paste one after the other and cook until a nice aroma is released.
- Add the chopped tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes have gone soft.
- Next add some fresh mint leaves and cook for about a minute together.
- Mean while prepare the coconut paste by grinding the ingredients mentioned under “for coconut paste”. - Grated coconut, fennel seeds, poppy seeds with water.
- Add red chilli powder, turmeric powder and the ground coconut paste into the pan and sauté it for a few minutes.
- Measure and add the water and bring curry to a boil.
- Once the curry comes to a bubbly boil, add the fried vada into the pan and move it around so all the vadais are submerged in the curry.
- Simmer the vada curry for 10 minutes.
- Do a final check for salt. I add a tbsp sugar to my curries to balance out the flavors. (This is an optional step )
- Turn off the heat and serve it hot on aval dosa or set dosa.