Baked Vada

Give me a good rainy day, especially during the summer monsoon season, and the best snack my mother would make was any one of these deep fried favorites: Bajji, Vada, or Pakodi.

While I love to cook, I am less enthusiastic of making anything that remotely feels unhealthy such as deep fried food. Don’t get me wrong, I do love my french fries with my vegeburger or that occasional onion rings.

While I wondered about it, I never tried to bake my bajjis or vadas, so I was recently happy to see that it does work and you can bake them. Here’s how I made mine!

Ingredients:

2/3 cup channa dal
1 tbsp brown rice flour
1-2 dry red chilies
1-2 jalapeno
a handful of chopped cilantro
1/4 onion chopped
1 inch piece of ginger
salt to taste

Soak the channa dal in water for 3-4 hours. It’s okay if it is more than 24 hours 🙂

Rinse, and set aside a handful of the channa dal. Transfer the rest to the food processor or blender. Add jalapeno, dry red chilli and ginger and process smoothly. It might be necessary to add 1-2 tbsp water. Don’t make it runny.

Add chopped onions, chopped cilantro, set-aside channa dal , and season with salt.

Meanwhile pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

Grease a baking pan generously with oil. Take 1-2 tbsp of batter and scoop out onto the baking pan as if baking cookies.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. Remove the baking pan, flip the vada and transfer back to the oven and continue baking for another 15-20 minutes.

Serve warm with some sweet and sour chutney such as ginger or any chutney for that matter.

It is also good when eaten with ketchup or spicy Maggi  sauce  :-)

Enjoy with a hot cuppa tea on a rainy or snowy day!

Pumpkin Cooked Two Ways South Indian Style

There was an unwritten rule my mother followed and I seem to have picked it up along the way…

Whenever she cooked a pulusu without dal (or lentils), she always cooked a curry or kura with lentils. A pulusu is a South Indian (from Andhra Pradesh) dish which is cooked with tamarind juice or yogurt to name a few. Being vegetarian, we relied heavily on lentils for our protein, so it makes sense that the kura was cooked with lentils.

Pumpkin Kura:
1/2 a small pumpkin
1 cup channa dal
1 tsp urad dal
1 tsp channa dal for seasoning
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1-2 dry red chilli peppers
1 jalapeno sliced
curry leaves (optional)
chopped cilantro to garnish
pinch of turmeric
pinch of asafoetida
salt to taste
1-2 tsp oil

I usually like to cook my channa dal and chopped pumpkin  in a pressure cooker. But it should be easy enough to cook on stove top. Rinse, and chop half the pumpkin into 1 in cubes. Rinse and wash 1 cup channa dal. Cook the pumpkin and channa dal in 2 cups of water, adding more as needed or cook in a pressure cooker.

In a large pan, heat 1-2 tsp of oil. Add turmeric, asafoetida, channa dal, urad dal, cumin seeds, mustard seeds and dry red chillies. Fry till lightly golden. Add curry leaves and sliced jalapeno and fry for a few seconds. Add the cooked pumpkin and channa dal, salt to taste and continue cooking till all the moisture evaporates. Garnish with some chopped cilantro.

Pumkin pulusu
1/2 small pumpkin
1/2 medium onion
1/4 small bottlegourd
1 small sweet potato
1 roma tomato
1tsp urad dal
1 tsp channa dal
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1-2 dry red chillies
1 jalapeno sliced
a few curry leaves
1-2 tbsp jaggery powder ( 2 1 inch cubes or as desired)
1 cup tamarind juice or as desired
1 tbsp white rice powder
salt to taste
chopped cilantro to garnish
I usually like to chop my vegetables into 1in cubes and pressure cook, but you can also cook stove top with some water. I add onion, bottlegourd, sweet potato, and pumpkin and pressure cook.

Meanwhile, heat a large pan with a little oil. Add turmeric, asafoetida, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, channa dal, urad dal, red chillies and fry till lightly brown. Add curry leaves, sliced jalapeno, and fry lightly. Add cooked vegetables, tamarind juice, jaggary and continue boiling. Mix white rice flour in a bowl with some water and add to the mix. Add some chopped tomato and continue cooking for 10-20 minutes in low flame. Add salt to taste. Garnish with chopped cilantro.

Serve both with some warm rice. Enjoy!