South Indian Style Dahi Vada | Perugu Garelu |Thayir Vadai
South Indian Style Dahi Vada 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.
Servings: 10 to 12
Calories: 130kcal
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.