Medu Vadai

Ingredients

• 1 cup Whole white urad dal
• 1 Teaspoon Rock salt (heaped)
• 2 Tablespoons Rice flour
• Oil (as needed)

Instructions

1. Wash the urad dal, cover with water, and soak for 1½ to 2 hours.
2. Once soaked, drain the water and grind into a thick, well-frothed batter, sprinkling in only a little water while grinding. (Batter ground in a stone grinder makes better vadais. If ground in a mixer, whip air into it thoroughly by hand afterward until it reaches a good consistency.)
3. Finally, before removing the batter from the grinder, add salt and grind for 1 more minute. (Adding salt earlier will make the vadai dense.)
4. Heat oil three-quarters full in a pan. (Drop a little batter in -- if it rises to the surface immediately, the oil is at the right temperature.)
5. Dip your hands in water, take a little batter, pat it out on a damp cloth or the surface of a plastic sheet, and make a hole in the middle.
6. Lift the cloth from underneath with your left hand and slide the shaped vadai off your hand into the oil with your right.
7. Shape and drop in as many vadais as the oil in the pan can hold.
8. Once the underside is cooked, flip and cook the other side; once golden, remove and drain on a rack for a minute before serving hot.
9. Serve this vadai with idli, sambar, and chutney.
10. Note: fry the vadai right after grinding the batter -- it shouldn't be allowed to ferment. Refrigerated, the batter can keep for 5 to 6 hours. To keep the vadai from soaking up too much oil, a little rice flour can be added while frying. Soaking and grinding in a handful of toor dal per measure of urad dal also keeps the vadai from absorbing as much oil.
11. Alternative method -- this same vadai batter can be shaped into several other kinds: (1) Spicy Vadai: grind a small piece of ginger, green chili, and a small piece of asafoetida into a smooth paste, mix into the batter, and fry. (2) Onion Vadai: mix chopped onion and green chili into a generous amount of vadai batter and fry. (3) Vegetable Vadai: mix finely chopped carrot, cabbage, and beans with onion, coriander leaves, a little salt, and ground green chili paste, and fry. (4) Greens Vadai: mix chopped amaranth or sprouted greens with chopped onion and green chili paste, and fry. (5) Rasam Vadai: heat dal rasam, drop the fried vadai into it, and let it soak for 2 hours; sprinkle chopped onion and coriander on top when serving. (6) Sambar Vadai: make an onion sambar; once the vadai is fried, dip it briefly in hot water and immediately drop it into the hot sambar to soak, then sprinkle chopped onion on top when serving.