When I was living in Nagercoil, i used to get the Rasa Vadai from the small tiffen shops along with the morning tiffens. The vadai used to melt in the mouth along with the flavor of rasam. I attempted to make the same vadai to that perfection, but i should admit that it hasn't come up to the same level of taste and perfection, but its not bad as well :-). For Rasa vadai i would prefer to use the 'Masala Vadai' instead of the medhu vadai.
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| Rasa Vada(Vadai) |
| Preparation Time | 3 hours |
| Cooking Time | 1 hour |
| Yield | 12 Vada's |
Ingredients for Rasam:
| Tamarind | 1 small lemon size |
| Rasam Powder | 1 Tablespoon |
| Tomato | 1 |
| Curry Leaves | few |
| Salt | To taste |
| Coriander leaves | Few |
| Cumin Seeds | 1 teaspoon |
| Pepper corns | 1/2 teaspoon |
Ingredients for Seasoning:
| Oil | 1 teaspoon |
| Mustard seeds | 1 teaspoon |
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| Rasa Vada(Vadai) |
Method for making Rasam:
- Take the cumin seeds and pepper corns in a mixer
- Grind it to a coarse powder and keep it ready
- Soak the tamarind in 1/2 cup of water and extract the juice . Grind the tomato in a mixer to a puree
- Take the tamarind juice and tomato puree in a heavy bottomed vessel. Add salt and hing and keep in flame and allow it to boil
- When it starts to boil, add rasam powder and allow it to boil for atleast 5 minutes till the raw smell of the rasam powder goes off.
- Now, in a separate pan, add ghee and when the ghee is hot, add mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds starts to sputter, add cumin-pepper coarse powder and fry for 1 minute and remove from flame
- Add 3 cups of water and bring it to boil.
- Add the seasoned ingredients to rasam.
- When the rasam starts to boil, remove from flame and finally garnish with coriander leaves
| Channa dal | 1 Cup |
| Raw Rice | 1 Tablespoon |
| Salt | To taste |
| Fennel Seeds | 1/2 Teaspoon |
| Mint Leaves | 10 |
| Coriander leaves | Few |
| Curry leaves | Few |
| Red Chillies | 2 |
| Green Chillies | 2 |
| Grated Ginger | 1 teaspoon |
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| Rasa Vada(Vadai) |
Method for making Vada:
- Soak the dals amd rice in water for 2 hours
- After, 2 hours drain the water and keep it aside for anther 30 minutes do completely drain all the water
- After 30 minutes, take 2 tabespoon of dals and keep it aside. Add half quantity of the remaining dals in a mixer along with salt and red chilli to grind the chillies nicely. Now add the remaining dals and give a couple of pulse. The final vada flour should be coarse and not smooth
- To the ground vada flour add chopped green chillies, onion and grated ginger and mix well
- Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Add a pinch of dough in hot oil and it it raises immediately, the oil is in the correct heatness. Take small quantity of dough, and make it a ball and keep it in flame and pat it to make a small patti
- Gently drop it in oil. Repeat for atleast 5-6 vadas. Fry the vada in one side
- After sometime, gently turn it to other side and keep it in medium flame and fry it evenly on both the sides. Remove the crispy vada from flame.
- Take half quantity of rasam and keep it aside. One half is for dipping the vadas and other half of rasam is for serving
- Add the fried vadas taken from flame to one half of rasam. Make sure the rasam is hot, if not heat the rasam again and drop the hot vadas
- Soak all the vadas in rasam for atleast 1 hour. Ususally we make ulundhu vada(Medhuvada) which should be soaked only for 5 minutes, but this is masal vada and hence we need to dip in rasam for longer time for the rasam to get deeper into the vada
- After 1 hour, warm the rest of rasam . Take 2 ladles of rasam and add the dipped and soaked vada and garnish with coriander leaves
- The delicious and tangy rasa vada is ready for serving
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| Rasa Vada(Vadai) |
Note:
- The vada dough should be coarse then only the vada will be crispy
- While we wait for the dals to be soaked in water, we can prepare the rasam and keep it ready
- There is no need to add dal for rasam and we need diluted rasam.
- We can add chopped tomatoes while serving. It will be more colorful and attracts our family and guests while serving