South Indian Style Dahi Vada – Perugu Vada/Perugu Garelu is a popular snack in India and also a festival favourite prepared by soaking deep fried Medu Vadas in a bowl of tempered yoghurt sauce.
Why not try out this South Indian Style Dahi Vada for this Makar Sankranthi? Dahi vada is a popular snack in India and also a favourite foe festivals. Also known as Perugu Garelu or Perugu Vada in Telugu, Dahi Bhalla in Punjabi, Thayir Vadai in Tamil, Thayir vada in Malayalam, Mosaru Vade in Kannada, Dahi Bara in Odia and Doi Bora in Bengali, is a snack prepared by soaking Medu Vadas in thick spiced yoghurt. This tends to be savoury as opposed to the sweet version served in North India.
There are always some dishes, which just swirl me back to the memory lane and remind me of those golden days. I was totally pampered by my mother and her delicious treats. But at that point of time, I was too young to realise the importance of these traditional dishes. Now when I try to recreate the same magical dishes in my own kitchen, I feel so proud that I too can. In short, my mother’s cooking fascinated me the most. Though she never delegated any of the culinary duties to me or my sister, I was always around my mum while she was cooking….playing or doing mischievous deeds!! So somewhere in the sub-conscious level, I had observed what she was doing. That’s what probably helped me to get inspired to cook & share all these wonderful recipes with you.
How to make Dahi Vada South Indian Style?
South Indian Style Dahi Vada or Perugu Vada/Perugu Garelu is one of the famous South Indian Snacks, explicitly served on special occasions or festivals or as an evening snack. I love the combination of this cool dahi vada, which complements any spicy meal. This will be a wonderful food, especially during summers, as we usually do not like eating hot and spicy food in that hot weather. In spite of being a deep-fried snack, it will be a perfect soothing snack on those hot days since it is dunked in yoghurt.
As for every dish varies in different cuisines but the prep almost does not vary in exception to the ingredients used. You can top up South Indian Style Dahi Vada with your custom additions to like coriander leaves, grated carrots, grated coconut or finely chopped cucumber or some crunchy Sev, almost anything to make it more interesting and inviting. But trust me, I like to relish mine as prepared below and I think that tastes the best.
Medu vadas or Garelu are a must for any festival in South India and we often make some extra to make this dahi vada or have several vadas left over and use these to make Perugu Garelu! What I like even more than the South Indian Style Dahi Vada is the leftover yoghurt/dahi. It has a taste of its own and we always have a fight for the last bit of leftover spiced yoghurt.
How to make batter for Vada Preparation?
I made the batter in my Ultra wet grinder and this makes all the difference in your Medu Vada. You just need to resist the temptation to add too much water to the urad dal while it’s grinding. This is harder to control in a mixer I guess.
For seasoning the batter, I’m liberal in using onions, coriander, green chillies, cumin seeds and ginger. I was amazed with the perfect pillowy vadas, so soft from inside. I usually manage to get the doughnut shape. You need not freak out if you can’t manage the shape, just make dumpling without a hole and dunk them into a bowl tempered yogurt sauce, letting them soak for a while and then sinking your teeth in the resulting goodness of wonderful contrast of textures and flavours!!
Off to the recipe for South Indian Style Dahi Vada!!
South Indian Style Dahi Vada Step-by-Step
Perugu Vada/Perugu Garelu :
Making of South Indian Style Dahi Vada mainly involves 3 steps-
- To soak, grind lentils and season the batter
- Preparing yoghurt sauce
- Deep-frying and soaking vadas in the yoghurt sauce.
Let’s go through each step in detail.
1. To soak, grind lentils and season the batter:
You can also refer to the recipe for detailed note for making Ulli Garelu or Medu Vada.
- Clean lentils under running water 2 to 3 times to remove any impurities..
- Soak lentils and a little rice in enough water for about 3 hours.
- Grind lentils in a mixer or stone grinder along with ginger to a thick paste. Grinding the batter to fluffy texture will yield crispy vadas.
- After grinding lentils to a coarse paste, pour the batter into a large bowl. Using your hand, beat the batter and combine well for at least 5 minutes, this will create air inside the batter. And you will get to enjoy soft, fluffy vadas.
- Use very little water to grind the soaked lentils into paste or thick batter.
- Finely chop onions, green chillies, coriander leaves and curry leaves.
- To the above batter, add all the chopped ingredients, cumin seeds and salt.
- Mix it well with your hand to incorporate all the stuff into the batter.
NOTE:
- Rice is used for a crisp in the vada. It’s optional.
- Grinding the batter for long time will make the vadas rubbery, so do not grind more than 15 minutes. Batter should be very light and fluffy, if its too thick and tight, then batter will sink and fried vadas will turn out very hard.
- Make vadas immediately after grinding. Once you add salt and onions to the batter it will start to release water slowly turning the batter watery, so try to fry them all immediately after grinding.
- In case you are not going to use the batter immediately, keep it covered in refrigerator till use. Add seasoning and salt only before making vadas.
2. Preparing yoghurt Sauce for South Indian Style Dahi Vada:
- Heat oil in a pan over medium heat. Add red chillies, cumin seeds, mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds. Do not miss out the fenugreek seeds as they impart a nice flavour to the dish.
- When mustard seeds splutter, add turmeric powder, asafoetida and curry leaves. Turn off the heat.
- In a large bowl, whip yoghurt to a smooth consistency and add a cup of water to get the required consistency. You can also add a quarter teaspoon of turmeric to the yoghurt(optional).
- It should be basically very thick. Now pour the tempering on on top of whipped yoghurt.
Look below for the consistency of the yoghurt sauce:
3. Deep-frying and soaking vadas in yoghurt sauce:
- Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan over medium heat.
- Check the temperature of oil by dropping a pinch of the batter. If it rises up immediately, oil is ready to deep-fry.
- Wet your hands and make small balls out of batter. Flatten the ball and make a hole at the center using thumb finger. Gently slide the vada into the oil by tilting your fingers..
- Alternatively you can take the ball on a plastic cover by wetting your hands occasionally and form a disc shape. Place a hole in the centre and drop them in hot oil for deep-frying.
- Drop the garelu/vadas carefully into hot oil and deep-fry them on both sides till they turn golden colour.
- It shouldn’t become crisp on the top like the regular vada, otherwise it will not absorb yoghurt.
How to make Dahi Vada Soft?
- Now take the vada and drop it in a bowl filled with water. Take it out in 30 seconds, squeeze the excess water just by putting the vada in the middle of both your palms or between 2 spoons.
- We are doing this process so that the vadas absorb curd very well and they will be very soft.
- Now drop this vada in tempered yoghurt sauce.
- Repeat the same process for all the vadas and flip them to the other side after an hour to make sure it absorbs curd on the other side also.
- South Indian Style Dahi Vada will be ready to serve after an hour and half of soaking.
- Refrigerate and serve chilled. You can use it for 2 to 3 days when refrigerated.
- Optionally you can garnish with grated carrot and Sev on top and enjoy!!
South Indian Style Dahi Vada | Perugu Garelu |Thayir Vadai
Ingredients
FOR MAKING VADAS:
To Soak & Grind:
- 1 Cup Whole Black gram Urad dal or Minapa pappu
- 1 Tbsp Raw Rice optional
- 1 inch Ginger finely chopped
To season the batter:
- 1 Large Onion finely chopped
- 2 to 3 Green Chillies finely chopped
- A Sprig of Curry Leaves finely chopped
- ½ cup Coriander finely chopped
- 1 tsp Cumin Seeds
- Required Salt
FOR SPICED YOUGHURT SAUCE:
- 500 ml Yoghurt/Curd
- Required Salt to taste
- 2 to 3 Dry Red chillies
- 1.5 to 2 cups Water depending on thickness of yoghurt
- 1 tsp Cumin Seeds
- 1 tsp Mustard Seeds
- ¼ tsp Turmeric powder
- ½ tsp Fenugreek/Methi seeds
- A generous pinch of Asafoetida
- A sprig of curry leaves
TO DEEP-FRY:
- Required oil for deep-frying
Instructions
Soak & grind Lentils:
- Clean the lentils using running water 2 to 3 times to remove any impurities..
- Soak lentils in plenty of water for about 3 hours.
- Grind lentils in a mixer or stone grinder to a thick paste along with ginger.
- Use very little water grind the soaked lentils into paste or thick batter (see notes).
Seasoning the batter:
- Take the batter in a bowl and add all the ingredients under the heading “To season the batter”.
- Mix it well with your hand to incorporate all the stuff into the batter.
Preparing yoghurt Sauce:
- Whip yoghurt to a smooth consistency and add water to get the required consistency. It should be basically very thick.
- Heat oil in a pan over medium heat. Add red chillies, cumin seeds, mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds. When mustard seeds splutter, add turmeric powder, asafoetida and curry leaves. Turn off the heat.
- Now pour the tempering on on top of whipped yoghurt.
Deep-frying Vadas:
- Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan over medium heat.
- Wet your hands and make small balls out of batter. Flatten the ball and make a hole at the centre and gently slide it into the oil.
- Alternatively you can take the ball of batter on a plastic cover by wetting your hands occasionally and form a disc shape. Place a hole in the centre and drop them into hot oil for deep-frying.
- Drop the garelu/vadas carefully into hot oil and deep-fry them on both sides into to just turn light golden colour. It shouldn’t become crisp on the top like the regular vada, otherwise it will not absorb yoghurt.
Soaking Vada in Yoghurt Sauce:
- Now take this vada and drop it in a bowl filled with water. Take it out in 30 seconds, squeeze the water just by putting the vada in the middle of both your palms or between 2 spoons. We are doing this process so that the vadas absorb curd very well and they will be very soft. Now drop this vada in tempered curd.
- Repeat the same process for all the vadas and flip them to the other side after an hour to make sure it absorbs curd on the other side also.
Serving suggestion:
- South Indian Style Dahi Vada will be ready after an hour of soaking.
- Refrigerate and serve chilled. You can use it for 2 to 3 days when refrigerated.
- Optionally you can garnish with grated carrot and Sev on top and serve.
Recipe Video
Notes
- Total time required for the recipe excludes soaking times before and after the recipe.
- Grinding the batter for long time will make the vadas rubbery, so do not grind more than 15 minutes.
- Batter should be very light and fluffy, if its too thick and tight, then batter will sink and fried vadas will turn out very hard.
- Be very careful while adding water to grind the batter, just add enough for grinding.
- Making the size of the garelu/Vada is your choice.
- Keep the batter covered in refrigerator till use. Add salt & onions only before frying the vadas.
- Beat the batter before frying to provide aeration which is very important to get crispy, light & spongy vadas. Season only after that.
- Do not add salt while grinding. Add salt just before frying the vada.
- Grinding the batter to fluffy texture will yield crispy vadas.
- Rice included in grinding aids to get crispy vadas. Instead you can also substitute with 1 tablespoon of rice flour after grinding.
- If for some reason if your batter is too thin because of too much water then add 1 teaspoon of rice flour or maida to bring it to a thick consistency. But do not add more than this, otherwise you end up getting hard vadas.
Do check out my compilation of some SANKRANTHI RECIPES from blog!!
Few more collections you may like:
And many more to come!!…..Stay Tuned!!
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Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2016 and has been updated with Video and replaced with edited pictures for comprehensiveness and freshness.
Happy Cooking 
Cheers!!
Padma
