Ulundu vadai or medhu vadai are deep fried fritters and a popular snack in south India.
They give great results when you soak them overnight. This is my favorite but I have a problem with shapes of the vadai. It was not the perfect ones like hotel. But last time i made it perfectly but did not take the final pics 🙂 . But my Mom made it for me this time 🙂 and I clicked these final pictures. She just made them so quickly!!!! She made the whole meal for lunch when I took a quick nap in the couch.
It is one of the easiest snack to make. If you have some left over sambhar, you can make the medhu vadas and do the sambhar vadai like I made :)! It is one of the famous appetizers in India.
Some places in hotels, the oil content is really high. So, I always prefer to make this at home and do it :)!
- Urad dal/SPlit Black Gram – 1 cup
- Small onion – 10 finely chopped
- Curry leaves - 6
- Green chillies – 2 nos
- Ginger – 1 inch
- Coriander leaves – 2tbsp,chopped
- Asafetida – 3-4pinches
- Salt – as needed
- Jeera - 2 tsp
- Soak the urad dal overnight atleast for 4- 5 hours. Drain the water completely and grind the mixture. Do not add any water. Drain them totally. Just sprinkle water. This whole process takes 10-15 minutes, you will get a fluffy white batter.
- Add the black pepper powder, rice flour, salt,cumin, asafetida, small onions,ginger and green chillies to the batter and mix well. If you want to add ginger and green chillies , add them in the batter before you grind, so you grind everything together.
- Wet your palms with water and take some batter in your right palm. Use the thumb and put a hole in the center and gently slid the round shape vadai into medium hot oil.
- Make the other vadais same way. Drop them in the oil. Fry the vadais till they are golden brown.
- Drain the medu vadais in the tisuue to remove excess oil.
For sambhar vada: - Take a bowl, keep the vada and top it with sambhar and add a tsp of ghee (optional) and sprinkle some chopped red onions and coriander!
2. Even if you don’t add rice flour, it will be good. But that rice flour gives extra crispy texture.
3. If the vadais are oily, then it means you have added more water, you can reduce next time.
4. Keep the batter in refregeritor for an hour and then make vadais and drop in oil, it will give good shape.
Serve vadais with chutneys or sambhar. You can serve them plain as a snack.
