Gowri Ganesha Festival series 1 - Home made urad dal Chakli

As I said, I am here with a short series on Gowri-Ganesha festivals. I am sure a lot of you have similar experiences to share, I would love to hear about them. Do drop in a line when you visit.

Gowri-Ganesha habba(festival) was a big deal growing up for many reasons. Unlike many other festivals we celebrate, this one had the definite aura of being a community celebration. Ganesha habba is celebrated outside the confines of home in most states in India. This set of festivals (sometimes on the same day and sometimes on consecutive days based on the Hindu calendar) would be kicked off days before with the preparations.

At nammamma's, we do the Swarna Gowri Vrata which is an extended version of the festival. Not all families do the vrata and so lot of amma's lady friends would come to our house for that part of the festival. My father was the unofficial purohit/priest who led all the ladies through the elaborate pooja. During these days, the professional priests are extremely busy, if you had a priest come in to do the pooja, it meant you had to adjust your schedule according to the time they gave you, your cooking should be done by a specific time, all of you had to be ready before the priest showed up etc which was a hassle. My father made one swell of a purohit and everyone was happy with the arrangement.

The preparations for the festival used to start atleast a month or so before. For me the essence of Gowri habba is in the special 'Morada baagina'. Gowri vrata is performed by ladies/girls praying to the Goddess of Shakthi for her blessings. On this day, it is customary to prepare 'baagina' which is comparable at some level to a gift hamper with a bunch of things put in and is exchanged among the ladies. So the traditional 'mora' or 'winnow'(imagine a wide 3 edged cup made from thin strips of bamboo), this is used to separate grains from chaffe in Indian homes will be bought new, washed, sun dried, applied with turmeric powder and decorated (if you are one of those artistic people). An array of things went into the baagina based on whether it was a married woman or a young girl giving it to her contemporaries.

Small plastic bags of Wheat, Chana dal, Toor dal, Urad dal, Moong dal, salt, rice, jaggery had to be prepared along with a bunch of mangala dravya/auspicious things such as a small mirror, new comb, kumkuma-arishina, a small bunch of black beads, bangles, blouse piece for every set of baagina. Everything was arranged in one of the decorated winnows while the other was put on top as a cover. At that age, finding a nice pair of glass bangles to add to my collection made my day. I kept aside the shiny new comb and the bangles after the festival while the grains and other stuff went back to Amma :-). On the day of the festival, amma added some sweets and savories before the baagina exchange. In addition to her regular number, she used to have one or two extra sets to tide over if there were unexpected guests on that day. Things have changed and the mora is replaced by cute looking plastic containers but I think it was more fun in the 'mora' era :-).

Other than the baagina and the food, Gowri habba was special due to the decorations we did on the altar. Most homes set up a separate place in their living room specially to build a mantapa/altar.This is a festival where we had lot of visitors and everyone worked hard at making their altar look beautiful. The artsy kind of people were in great demand. Anna was incharge of the mantapa while akka would take over dressing up the idols for pooja. In our family I am the most 'uncraftsy' person, my creative best stops at counted cross stitches while my akka could come up with ideas and also make them from everyday materials. Akka made these beautiful jewelry with cotton to dress up the idol. She would get glittery, thin papers and other small trinkets to adorn those white necklaces. I did try my hands at it later on, when she was married and gone but mine were no where closer to what she used to make. She would also dress the idol with a nice, new piece of cloth.

I loved going to the market with my father on the day before the festival, crowded, extremely chaotic and noisy though it used to be. In addition to all the usual flowers and fruits and paan leaves and vegetables, special request would be for the lotus flowers. I don't remember getting lotus flowers for any other festival, maybe it was the season. But we would pick a few lotus flowers in yellow, red and pink colors, bring them home and put them in a bowl of water until the next day. These flowers do not open up on their own as they have been cut, so we gently pulled open each petal until a beautiful flower was ready. Both my parents being garden enthusiasts, we always had a lot of home grown flowers to deck up the altar.

Amma used to start the day very early, I don't even know when she actually got up as she made all the dishes for the naivedya after her bath. We joined her much later in the morning as we got up and took our bath. All little kids were assistants to other people and we would help Anna to build the mantapa. We picked out blemish free, green mango leaves that were uniform in size so he could build an aesthetically beautiful and geometrically perfect Torana/decoration with the leaves. Washing the front door, making nice Rangoli/kolam designs was part of the day and there always was an undeclared competition in the neighborhood to produce the best design in front of their home. This was one of the areas where I could mask away my clumsiness by making decent looking  'count and draw' designs :-)

The pooja used to start once all the ladies assembled and go on for an hour and half. After all the post-pooje events including the baagina exchange, it was lunch time. Having already eaten all the goodies from the time Pooje concluded officially, this was one of the lunches I used to pick at for a long time :-). Typical naivedya for Gowri habba is kayi obbattu (coconut-jaggery filling), kobbari mithai, chakli, chitranna along with the usual festival fare including saaru/rasam, palya, kosambari, paayasa. I left the big item out this year and prepared chakli, chitranna and kosambari.

I wish I had pictures to share with you about all this, I have been going through my albums for the last couple of days but haven't found blog worthy, non-personal pictures in my collection. Maybe some day I will revisit these posts to update pictures.

Chakli doesn't need an introduction if you are used to South Indian deep fried savories. It also goes by the name 'murukku'. The traditional chakli is one made with urad dal and rice and nammamma followed a process of soaking rice and shade drying it before sending it to be powdered with roasted urad dal. Since I don't have nammamma's home made chakli hittu/powder, I follow my SIL's recipe for a delicious urad dal chakli. You do not need to worry about making a fine powder as this recipe calls for making a paste of boiled urad dal which is so much easier on the blenders we have here.

What do you need to make Chakli/Chakkuli? 
Makes about 60-70 chaklis depending on the size, takes about 1.5 hours to fry them
1 cup urad dal (without husk)
4 cups rice flour
1 Tblsp sesame seeds
2 Tblsp butter
1.5 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
3.5 cups water - divided use
Oil to deep fry

How do you make chakkuli?

• Roast urad dal on medium heat until it turns light pick in color. 
• Cook the roasted dal in your pressure cooker with 2 cups of water until it is soft.
• When the dal comes to room temperature grind it to a soft paste using another 1/2-1 cup of water as needed.

• Combine urad dal paste, rice flour, sesame seeds, butter and salt in a wide bowl and mix it into a soft, pliable dough. Use the remaining water as needed. 

• Knead the dough for 5 minutes until it is a soft mass.

• Heat the oil in a wide pan, if you drop a pinch of the dough it should come up to the surface right away. 
• Put a handful of the dough in your chakkuli press and make chakkuli on a plastic sheet or aluminium foil.

• Drop the chaklis one by one carefully into the hot oil, fry until golden brown and crisp and take them onto a plate lined with paper towels.. 

• Finish up all the dough, let the chaklis cool off before storing them in airtight containers. This keeps well for a couple of weeks if you don't eat them :-)

Tips: 

• Chakli making is quite easy but needs some practice to create those concentric circles. Hold the press at 2 inches above the surface and follow the flow of the dough as it comes out of the chakli press. Lightly press the tip of the outermost circle inside so the shape holds when it is fried.
• Use a wide pan to heat oil, so chaklis have space to cook, do not crowd them one on top of other.
• Keep the heat on medium and let the chaklis cook thoroughly so they stay crispy for a long time. Over heating of oil or quick frying results in a burnt outer layer and soft inner core. 

• Chaklis tend to turn a shade darker as they cool, take them off the oil once the oil stops bubbling so they do not get over cooked.
• Keep the butter outside for a half hour so it softens up before you use it in the dough. 
• Before you load the chakli dough into the press, smear a few drops of cool water around the inside edges where it touches the dough so the press moves easily. 
• Wet a paper napkin or a piece of cheecloth, squeeze the water out and use it to cover the chakli dough to keep it from becoming dry. 

Notes:

• This Chakli dough is much softer and pliant than the regular chapati dough.
• I usually make 5-6 chaklis on the aluminium sheet away from the hot oil and then slowly ease them one by one into the hot oil. I have seen some people use the chakli press directly in the oil pan to make chakli, it is just a matter of your preference and ease.
• Once you put the chakli in hot oil, do not disturb them for a minute and half, Flip them only after they have had a chance to cook for this time else you will end up breaking the chaklis into pieces. 
• A nice even golden brown color of chaklis indicate it is done as well as the stopping of the bubbles in the oil. 
• Butter makes chakli crispy and light but too much of butter will break it into pieces. 
• Amma usually added white sesame seeds to the chakli, you can get an alternate flavored chakli with cumin seeds.

Here is a plate of crispy, tasty chaklis for you to munch on while I will come back tomorrow with more dishes.

Poli Purnam Boorelu - Varalaxmi Vratam sweet

Hope everyone had a good weekend, we had a good one starting with the Varalaksmi festival on Friday. There has been some planning going into the pooja preparation and menu finalization for the past week or so, now that my in-laws are here with us, we have 2 additional brains for menu ideas :-). Amma said we had to make 9 varieties for the naivedya/naivedyam (offering to God after the pooje), so I kind of tried to pick atleast one each of everyone's favorite in addition to the traditional must-haves and we actually ended up with a wonderful spread of dishes and all of us including some friends who came in the evening enjoyed the food.

Food is such an integral part of any festival, right? I notice it is true without any barrier of region or religion. I guess, for me that is where my earliest food related memories are, any festival or get together at home, nammamma would be up early and in the kitchen preparing variety of dishes, there were days on which we kids were strictly forbidden from entering the kitchen and my uncle would be in charge of driving any stray kids away from the place, I even remember him writing 'No Entry' on the kitchen door to drive home the point :-). Some of the festivals, nammamma would prepare things ahead of time (Sankranthi ellu being one of them) but most times, she would cook the naivedya dishes only on the day of the festival after bathing. We prepared all of the naivedya dishes on Friday morning too and so the pooje started a little late and took us right into lunch time which was perfect. We were famished, food was good and we had a great time.

Here is a quick look at our naivedyam thali(s), I will try to get all of them into the blog as soon as I can. Though I took the pictures for every dish, I don't have enough of them especially for a stand alone blog post, so some of them will be featured only when I make it next time :-).

But today's post is dedicated to a traditional Andhra delicacy - poli purnam boorelu. The name is a mouthful, so let me break that out for the uninitiated. Poli~steamed, purnam~sweet stuffing. This is a sweet prepared in weddings and other auspicious occasions, the process is slightly laborious but the end result will simply mesmerize you with taste. Ingredients are simple, used every day in the kitchen. There is another very popular form of boorelu with the chana dal stuffing (my personal favorite only because I like jaggery based sweets more than those made with white sugar) which is simply called purnam boorelu but the poli purnam boorelu is equally delicious. 

The stuffing is made with moong dal, sugar and lot of cardamom(yes, use lots and freshly pounded for flavoring), the outer shell is made with a dosa like batter made with urad dal and rice. Stuffing is dunked in the batter and deep fried to a golden brown, crispy perfection. I am told that this is traditionally eaten by making a hole in the middle of a hot, crispy boorelu and adding a spoonful of ghee before popping it into the mouth. Although, we didn't go to that extreme indulgence, we completely enjoyed the sweet, cardamom flavored, protein packed boorelu.

What do you need to make Poli Purnam Boorelu? 
The proportions below make about 18-20 golf ball sized boorelu. 
Ingredients for stuffing:
1 cup moong dal/pesara pappu
3/4 cup sugar (adjust to taste if you like sweeter)
4-5 cardamom - peeled and seeds freshly pounded
Ingredients for covering: 
1/2 cup urad dal/uddi pappu/minapappu
1 cup rice
Other ingredients: 
Oil to deep fry

How do you make Poli Purnam Boorelu? 
Making the stuffing: 

• Soak moong dal in 3 times water for 2 hours.
• Wash and drain the moong dal, grind it with as little as possible water to a paste. 

• Put spoonfuls of the ground paste into idli moulds and steam it for 15 minutes until the dal is cooked. 

• Once the steamed cakes cool down, break them into pieces and run it through your mixer on pulse mode to further break them, add the sugar and blend it once with the dal. 

• This mixture will be slightly wet because of the added sugar, add the freshly pounded cardamom and working with your hands, knead the entire mixture for a couple of minutes until the consistency is good to make balls out of it.
• Make golf sized balls with this mixture and keep aside.

Making the covering:

• Soak the urad dal and rice together in water for 3 hours until they soften.
• Wash, drain the dal-rice mixture and grind it in the mixer into a batter. Add water while grinding but make sure you get a dosa consistency batter at the end. 
• This batter doesn't have to ferment and does not have to be overly smooth. Keep aside.

Boorelu assembly:

• Heat the oil for deep frying preferably in a wide pan. Check the readiness by dropping a small droplet of the batter in the oil, if it comes right up to the surface, oil is ready. 
• Take the prepared stuffing ball, dunk it in the batter, shake it to remove any extra batter and drop it carefully in the hot oil. Repeat for the remaining stuffing to just fill your frying pan.

• Leave the boorelu to cook untouched for a couple of minutes before slowly turning them over to cook on the other side. 

• When the boorelu reach a golden brown crust on all sides, take them out of the oil onto a paper napkin. 

Notes: 

• Do not soak moong dal for more than a couple of hours as it tends to become oily when fried. 
• Breaking the steamed moong dal idlis into fine powder along with sugar takes some hard work with your hands, make use of the mixer to pulse it down as much as possible before manually kneading it to make balls.
• The batter covering should be flowy but not watery, it should coat the stuffing well at the same time not becoming very thick, adjust the consistency as needed. 
• Use fresh pounded cardamom for best flavor burst.
• You can make dosas with any extra batter, i added a spoonful of fine sooji, salt and the dosas were delicious. 

Handvo - Love affair continues with Gujarati snacks

I have already professed my love for Gujarati snacks with recipes blogged here and here. I am more partial to their snacks than anything else. Handvo (or Handwa) is a Gujarati snack made with soaked rice and mixed lentils. There are as many variations of the dal mixture as there are dals :-). Having said that, typical Handvo consists of toor dal, chana dal and urad dal with an addition of moong or masoor dal. Can you already see that this is not protein deficient dish by any means? The traditional version is cooked with a lot of oil but baking this dish with oil used only for seasoning keeps it healthy. Baked handvo is cut into wedges(or any other shape you prefer) and served with a coriander/mint sweet-spicy chutney as a snack.

When I cook dishes that are not native to me (those that I didn't grow up eating), I always start with an analysis of similarities and differences between the new dish and something I am familiar with. If you think about it, Handvo has some resemblance to the South Indian Dosa/Dose or adai. After all, ingredients are similar (proportions though vastly different) and traditionally it is pan fried with an oil base which is the same concept of uttappa(m)s, right? I am glad someone in a Gujarati house hold figured out how to make a Handvo with rice and lentils while some one down South made a Dose because both are equally welcome in my kitchen :-). I will not go any farther on this though because if DD had her say, she would definitely do a 'Mom, stop comparing things weirdly', because according to her, I killed the fun of Harry Potter series by constantly quoting story lines from Indian epics such as Mahabharata and Bhagavata :-). For the record, I love the Harry Potter books. It is a different story that she is still hooked to HP and keeps reading the books over & over again. 

But I guess the point I was trying to make above is that cooking is more an art than measurements, there are techniques you need to be aware of but once you know the basic process, every cook can weave their individual magic wands and make the dish unique. BTW, that is the excuse I use every time one of my preparations falls short against nammamma's :-)

If you are entertaining friends or family, think about Handvo as one of the starters since the batter can be prepped ahead of time. All you need to do before the party starts is to pour the batter into the pans and bake it. I have seen the Handvo flour in Indian grocery stores here but have never tried it myself. I prefer my old fashioned way of grinding the batter at home.

What do you need to make Handvo? 
Makes 2 - 8 inch pans
1 cup rice - any long grained rice will work, I typically use Sona masoori variety.
1/4 cup toor/tuvar dal or togari bele
1/4 cup chana dal or kadle bele
1/4 cup masoor dal or moong dal - I used masoor dal this time
2 Tblsp urad dal or black gram
3 cups tightly packed grated bottle gourd
5 green chilies - adjust to taste
1/4 cup sour yogurt - a day old works best
1 inch long piece ginger root
1 Tblsp grated coconut - fresh or frozen - optional
1 Tsp sugar
1 Tsp salt
For seasoning:
1 Tblsp oil
1 Tsp mustard
1/4 Tsp asafoetida
4-5 finely chopped curry leaves
1 Tsp red chili powder - optional
For garnish:
1 Tsp white sesame seeds

Optional - chopped cabbage, chopped cilantro, grated carrot - I haven't used any of these this time though I usually load up my Handvo with finely chopped cabbage or grated carrots.

How do you make Handvo?

• Wash and soak rice and the dals together in water for about 6 hours. 
• Rinse, drain the rice and dals and grind it with green chilies and ginger to a coarse paste with as little as 2 Tblsp of water. 

• Wash, peel and grate bottle gourd (thick grates is preferred here) - see notes for additional vegetables

• Add the bottle gourd grating along with yogurt, salt and sugar into the ground mixture, set it for fermenting over night or atleast 6-8 hours. - see notes for fermentation tips
• The batter would have thinned down a little with the yogurt and bottle gourd juice and will look fluffy and porous with fermentation, mix grated coconut into the batter. It is important to use as little water as needed while grinding.
• Heat the oil, add mustard, chopped curry leaves and asafoetida. Let mustard sizzle & pop, switch off the stove, add the red chili powder, mix it well into the oil. Pour everything into the batter and mix well. 

• At this time, taste the batter to check and adjust sugar, salt, red chili powder per taste. you can add more green chili-ginger paste at this time if you like. 
• Spray 2 - 8 inch pans with cooking spray, pour the batter to 1/2-3/4 inch thickness and sprinkle sesame seeds all over. 

• Pre heat the oven to 350F, bake the Handvo for 30 minutes. a toothpick or knife pushed in the center of the pan should come out clean. 
• A more traditional way of making this is to pour the batter into a thick cast iron pan (about 1inch thickness), drizzle oil around the sides, cover and cook on low heat until the bottom side gets the crispiness of your liking, gently turn it over and continue cooking on  the other side without covering the pan until both surfaces are roasted well and a toothpick comes out clean when pushed through the center.
• the stove top method needs a little bit more attention than baking and results in a deep roasted texture if you prefer. i love to use my cast iron pan for this.
• Switch the oven to broil (high) and broil for 3 minutes to get a nice brown coating on top. Keep an eye on the Handvo during broil as oven settings differ and it can burn the dish in a matter of minutes.

• Let the Handvo stand for a couple of minutes, cut wedges and serve it with coriander or mint chutney or ketchup as a tea time snack. 

Notes: 

• If you are adding additional vegetables, make sure all of them together make 3 packed cups. Keep bottle gourd to atleast 2 cups so you get the right consistency of batter. You can squashes or cucumbers for a different flavor. 
• The Handvo batter needs to be fermented well, if you are in a hurry and do not have overnight waiting time, go ahead and add 1/2 Tsp of cooking soda into the batter and leave it for about 30 minutes before baking. 
• Addition of coconut makes the Handvo lighter, but this is a personal preference. skip it if you don't want to use it. 
• Broiling the Handvo at the end is important to get the crispy layer on top, but keep a close watch during the broil cycle. 
• The batter should not be ground very smooth, the texture should be a little grainy. 
• Do not pour the batter thinner than 1/2 inch as it changes the texture of the finished product and makes it chewy. 
• Reheat Handvo pieces in the conventional or toaster oven to get it to taste as good as new.

Tatte Idli - Special masala idli

Tatte in Kannada is plate, idlis made in small little plates that can be set up in their own stand and steamed. Why is this special? Well, for one the shape is different from regular idlis but more importantly because this idli can be eaten just by itself without much side dish fanfare. The idli batter is already decked up with fresh masala ingredients to enhance the taste.

When I was writing this post, I realized that I have not started any serious dose(dosa) or idli recipes yet on the blog. What a shame J, I will get to it some time in the very near future.

Back to Idli batter, there are number of versions each working really well for the people that make them. Some people swear by their proportion of urad dal and rice,  some by the time of grinding and fermentation methods while some go by the actual mixing. In Karnataka and Andhra, idli is made with the rice rava and not by grinding rice. Nammamma makes some of the pure white, light and airy idlis using the rice rave that resemble the fully bloomed pristine jasmine flower from my home town and hence called mallige idlis.

I alternate between the rava and rice method depending on my mood, time available for grinding the rice etc. The texture of idlis made using the rava is slightly more grainy and feels soft and crumbly when you break into them. On the other hand, idlis made with rice is more bouncy and smoother to the bite. Hallmark of a good idli in either method is a light and airy end product. 

Now if you do not have a tatte idli stand, doesn’t mean it is the end of the world. Use the pan that comes with your pressure cooker (the one you use to make rice or dal) and spread the idli batter to about ½ inch thickness in the pan. Or use your regular idli plates to make the idlis.

What do you need to make Tatte idli?
I use the same batter for normal idlis

Idli dough ingredients:

1 cup deskinned urad dal(or deskinned whole urad)

2.5 cup rice rava

1 Tsp fenugreek seeds

1 Tblsp salt

3/4 cup water to grind

Masala ingredients:

1 Tblsp black pepper corns

1 Tblsp cumin seeds

4 Tblsp chana dal

4 Tblsp thinly sliced fresh coconut (see notes)

2 Tblsp chopped cilantro

How do you make Tatte idli?

Making Idli dough:

• Wash urad dal in atleast 3-4 changes of water, scrubbing the dal as you drain the water.
• Soak urad dal and fenugreek seeds in 4 cups of water for 4-6 hours.
• Soak rice rava separately in 3 cups of water for 4-6 hours.
• Wash the urad dal one more time, drain out the water.
• Grind the dal and fenugreek seeds in a grinder/blender using not more than 1 cup of water at different intervals until you get a really smooth dough (see notes).

• In the meantime, take fistfuls of soaked rice rava, squeeze out the water and put in in a wide bowl.

• Scoop out the ground dal on to the squeezed rava, put salt and with a light hand, mix them all together into a homogeneous mixture.
• Cover and leave it in a warm place over night to ferment. 

Making the tatte idli:
Note: Each tatte idli is approximately equal to 3 regular idlis

• Pound the pepper and cumin in a mortar and pestle into a coarse crush, DO NOT POWDER THEM. (see notes)
• Soak chana dal in 2 cups of water for about 45 minutes or until they plump up, drain the water.
• Chop the coconut into thin, longish juliens – idea is to have to bite into coconut pieces when you eat the idli.
• Add the coarsely crushed pepper-cumin, soaked chana dal, chopped cilantro and chopped coconut pieces into the fermented idli batter, give it a mix.
• Prepare the tattes (or the cooker pan) by smearing a drop of oil all around it. Pour the batter to about ½ inch in the plate.

• Set the plates (or the pan) in the idli cooker or regular cooker and steam it for 20 minutes on medium heat.
• Remove the idli stand from the cooker/steamer and let it stand for 2 minutes. 

• Using a blunt knife, remove the idlis from the plate by working around the edges first. 

 Notes:

• Grinding urad dal into a really smooth, bouncy dough is half the battle won, use as little water as needed to run your mixer. Using fridge cold water helps your mixer/blender motor to survive longer. 
• Pepper and cumin seeds are crushed enough to release flavor, do not make a powder of them. Pepper powder also makes the tatte idlis spicier. 
• I have seen two varieties of rice rava in the stores here - one is slightly larger grains than the second. I prefer the smaller variety. 
• Scrubbing the urad dal helps remove any remnant black skin and result in a white idlis. 
• One of my cousins stops making idlis and dosas in winter as she does't believe you can ferment them well, what works for me is to preheat my oven to 170F (minimum my oven will go down to) and switch it off. Place your idli batter bowl inside the oven overnight. 

Dahi vada or Peruggarelu

Vada or vade (as we call it in Kannada) was meant for specific occasions at home. Nammamma never deviated from this unwritten rule and never made urad dal vades on other days. So it was only when we went to restaurants which was so infrequent that we would get to taste this sinfully delicious stuff. As we grew up, she made concessions and when I started experimenting in the kitchen, I was allowed to make them but call them urad dal bondas instead and was not allowed to make the hole in the center which is so characteristic of vadas :-).

However at my in-laws place, there is no such restriction on making these vadas any time and I was completely blown over the first time amma prepared them after I got married. Her dahi vadas or peruggarilu (perugu~curd/yogurt and garelu~vadas) are to die for and she gets the same melt in the mouth consistency every single time she makes it. It is featured on birthdays, festivals and any occasion or no occasion at all :-).

When amma makes these at home, it takes center stage and she usually makes one rice item which kind of gets a typical step motherly treatment during lunch/dinner as all the attention is on the peruggarelu. And we in our family have different preferences when it comes to eating it. DD likes a sprinkle of boondi (a savory deep fried snack made with chick pea flour) for crunch while I like it with a dash of red chili powder and BH loves to top it with both :-).

As I love these peruggarelu, I have conveniently forgotten nammamma's rule and switched over to amma's practice. With both BH and DD having inherited the love for peruggarelu, we enjoy making and eating it. I made these dahi vadas 2 weeks back when we had guests home but couldn't get to posting it due to travel and work and everything else happening in life :-). When I started my post today, the pictures beckoned me and I didn't have to think about any other dish. My friends from North India like to eat it with a dollop of thick tamarind-date chutney on top.

Dahi vadas are made with Urad dal or black gram. Some people like to use a coarsely ground dough for making dahi vada while I prefer my completely smooth batter. A pre-requisite is to have good dahi or yogurt that is not sour.

What do you need to make Dahi-vada? 
For the Garelu/vadas - Makes about 20-24 vadas depending on the size:
1 cup urad dal/black gram dal
1/2 cup water for grinding
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
4-5 black pepper corns
oil to deep fry

For the Parugu/Dahi: 
2 cups of thick yogurt
1 Tsp salt
1/2 Tsp sugar
1/2 cup water

For the perugu popu/Dahi seasoning:
1 Tsp cooking oil
1 Tsp mustard
1 Tsp cumin seeds
2-3 dry chilies

How do you make Dahi-vada? 
Prepare Dahi/perugu

• Mix yogurt and water and whisk it till smooth.
• Add salt and sugar and mix it well. 
• Prepare seasoning by heating oil - add mustard, cumin and red chilies. Let the seeds crackle.
• Pour it over the yougurt mixture, mix well and pour it into a wide basin that will hold your vadas when soaked. 

Prepare Vadas:

• Soak urad dal for an hour, wash it in 2 changes of water, drain the water. 
• Grind it to a smooth batter by using little amounts of water at intervals, take care to use as little water as needed to run your blender/mixer. 
• Towards the end of grinding, add the pepper corn and let it blend with the batter. 
• Take out the batter, mix salt in.
• Heat oil in a wide frying pan on medium heat. 
• Wet your fingers with water, scoop out a lemon sized batter, flatten it a little on your palms and gently ease it into the hot oil. 
• After 2 minutes, turn the vadas over and let both sides turn golden brown. 

• Drain the vadas, drop them slowly into a bowl of cold water and let it stand for 45secs to a minute. 

• Lift the vadas one by one, squeeze them gently between palms taking care not to break them and drop them into the yogurt vessel. 
• Spoon some yogurt on top of the vadas. 

• Repeat for all of the batter. 
• Let the vadas soak for atleast 20-30 minutes for them to become soft. 

• Serve plumped up dahi vadas with a scoop of the yogurt mixture and any topping of your choice. 
• Forget about deep frying, dieting and just binge on the bliss for a day, remember to hit the gym extra hard the next day :-)

Tips: 

• Do not soak urad dal for more than an hour, your vadas tend to absorb more oil if you do. 
• Use as little water as needed during grinding for a thick batter. 
• Use cold water while grinding to help your mixer/blender motor.
• Dropping the hot finished vadas into cold water helps remove the oil on top and eliminate the resulting bitterness when soaked in yogurt. 
• Do not leave the vadas in cold water for more than a minute and do not squeeze them too hard. 
• Use a wide pan for the yogurt as the vadas occupy space once they soak up the yogurt. 

Serving suggestions: 

• Spoon out dahi vadas in to a serving bowl along with a scoop of the yogurt, top it with a variety of ingredients to enhance the taste from red chili powder to tamarind-date chutney to boondhi or let your imagination take over.