Medu Vada / Ulli Garelu

Medu Vada is a doughnut shaped, lentil savory and is a very common breakfast in South India.
This can be eaten with any chutney or sambar or rasam or even as dahi vada.
It is a must on any festival like sankranthi, ugadi , Ganesh Chaturthi or varalakshmi Vratham.

So here is the recipe to make these vadas made of whole black gram lentil batter.

Ingredients :

• Urad Dal - 2 cups
• White Rice ( raw ) - 2 tbsp
• Grated Ginger - 1 tbsp
• Finely Chopped Green Chillies - 2 or 3
• Finely Chopped Onion - 1 big or 2 small
• Coriander leaves - 1/4 cup
• Hing - 2 pinches
• Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
• Whole Black Pepper - around 6-8
• Salt- to taste
• Oil - for deep frying

Directions:

• Soak urad dal for atleast 6 hours or overnight.
• Blend it into a course paste and transfer it into a mixing bowl.
• Now add cumin seeds, chopped onions, pepper, chopped coriander leaves, hing, salt , grated ginger, chopped green chillies to the batter and mix well.
• Heat oil for deep frying in a heavy bottom pan. The oil should not be too hot. Put a very small amount of batter in the oil for testing if the oil is ready or not. The batter should not immediately pop up, nor should it settle down at the bottom. It should sizzle in oil and then pop up after a few seconds. This is the right temperature of oil.
• Now make vadas in the shape of doughnut. Wet your hands with little water. Take a lemon sized ball and flaten it with you fingers on a greesed sheet. Wet your finger again with water and make a whole in the center.
• Slowly and carefully drop it in the oil for frying. Toss it after 2 minutes to fry it on the other side as well, till it turns golden brown in color.
• Remove from oil and drain it on kitchen paper towel.

Serve it hot with sambar and chutney.

Enjoy !! :)