Healthy Moong Dal Dahi Vada

Moong dal dahi vada

The story of the moong dal vadas. When I was back in India last year this time, my mom made some amazingly soft vadas and made buffalo milk yoghurt. If you haven had buffalo milk, it is thick more creamier and richer than cow's milk, so obviously the yoghurt will be thick and creamy. That dahi vada was the best I have ever had. Fast forward to May , I tried making the vadas at home and they turn out hard as ever. Turns out I was using the wrong type of moong dal, the yellow split moong dal without the skin is the right one to make the vadas. This time round the vadas were super soft and tasted delicious. I hate deep frying because of the fear of hot oil, so i used an appe pan to shallow fry the vadas and they turned out great. 

Ingredients:

1 cup Moong Dal

1 cup Dahi 

4-5 pepper corns

ginger grated approx 1 tsp 

To garnish:

Roasted & Coarsely crushed jeera

Pomegranate seeds

Chopped coriander

Chili powder

Recipe:

* Soak the moong dal for 3-4 hours or preferably overnight. Drain the water and in a blender / wet grinder grind the dal till it is soft and smooth. Do not use any water. Add the pepper corns , grated ginger and salt as it is grinding. I used a wet grinder to grind the daal smoothly and get a batter which will yield fluffy vadas. It should take around 15-20 mins for the daal to grind smoothly and fluff up using a wet grinder.

* Heat the appe pan and add oil to the moulds. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the moulds.
To help the vadas cook evenly close light with a lid. Check to see if one side is done then flip the vadas.

* Once the vadas are done soak them immediately in warm water for a few minutes. They will absorb the water and swell up.

* In the meanwhile beat the dahi with a large spoon, add salt. Squeeze out as much water as you can and add the vadas to the seasoned dahi.

* Add crushed jeera, chili powder, pomegranate seeds and chopped coriander. Chili in the fridge and serve.