Dahi Vada

If you're looking for a delicious snack to try, consider making Dahi Vada or Dahi Bhalla! This North Indian chaat has a versatile taste and texture thanks to the different ingredients involved. It has all the sweet, sour, salty and spicy elements of a chaat, making it an ideal evening snack!

Course Snacks & Appetizers

Cuisine North Indian

Diet Gluten Free, Vegetarian

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 20

Resting Time 8

Total Time 8 35

Servings people

Calories 219kcal

Author Richa

Ingredients

Vada

1 Cup Urad Dal
A pinch Hing
3-4 Teaspoons Water
3-4 Teaspoons Salt
Oil for frying

Dahi Vada

2 Cups Curd thick
¾ Teaspoon Sugar
Coriander Mint Chutney as required
Meethi Imli Chutney as required
1-2 Teaspoons Roasted Cumin Powder
1-2 Teaspoons Kashmiri Red Chilli Powder
½ Teaspoon Salt
A pinch Black salt optional

Instructions

Vada

Wash and soak urad dal overnight.
Place the urad dal in a sieve to completely drain all the water
Add it to a mixer grinder, add a tablespoon of water at a time (I used between 4-6 tablespoon water), and grind it to a smooth paste. You may need a little less or a little more water, but try to use as little water as possible. This entire process can take up to 6-8 minutes. It's important to keep mixing it with a spatula and grinding.
Mix salt and hing in the ground urad dal and set it aside for ten minutes. The hing acts as baking soda and helps make the batter lighter.
Place the oil in a kadhai for heating while you whisk the batter
Use a hand whisk to whisk the ground urad dal until it's light and fluffy - approximately 5 minutes. You’ll feel the batter becoming airy and fluffier and also getting lighter in colour from a yellow to pale white.
To make vadas, wet the back of a flat katori with water. Take a lime-sized amount of batter in your dominant hand (in my case, my right hand) and place it on the wet surface of the katori.
Using the fingers of the dominant hand, gently tap to press it into a flat circle. Gently drop the vada in hot oil by turning the katori over the kadhai (close to the oil so the vada doesn't splash into it) and moving the fingers slightly so the vada slides into the oil. Alternatively, the same can be done using the palm of your subservient hand instead of the katori.
You should see it start to puff up slightly. Cook it on a medium flame for 2-3 minutes till golden brown on both sides. Remove the vadas using a skimmer and keep aside on a tissue lined plate. Repeat with the rest of the batter.
Add 2-3 cups of hot water into a bowl and combine it with 1 teaspoon of salt.Soak the fried vadas in it for 20 minutes.
Once soaked, remove each vada one-by-one and squeeze it well enough to remove as much water as possible.

Dahi Vada

Add curd and sugar to a bowl. Whisk to combine.
Dip the vadas in the curd mix and transfer to a plate. Top it off with some extra curd.
Drizzle imli chutney, coriander chutney, roasted cumin powder, salt, black salt and red chilli powder as per your preferences. You can also top it with some sev if you like, serve immediately!

Notes

Soak the urad dal for 6 hours for the best texture – or 4-5 hours if you’re shorter on time. Don’t soak the dal overnight/ for longer than 8 hours as this will result in a batter that absorbs too much oil.
Add water in parts when grinding – this will make sure that your batter is smooth and fluffy with a thick dropping consistency (this is what we want!). You can grind in two batches based on the size of your blender.
It’s really important that we aerate the batter – this is done through whipping the ground batter in a bowl using a spatula/whisk/spoon for 4-5 minutes. This is what gives our vadas that bouncy, spongy texture.
To check if your batter has the right consistency after whisking – do the water drop test. Take a small amount of the batter and drop it into a cup filled with water. If it floats, that means the consistency is perfect.
When frying, test your oil with a drop of batter. If your batter falls to the bottom of the pan – your oil is too cool, but if it browns immediately, the oil is too hot. We want to fry our vadas on a medium high flame
Make sure not to overcrowd the pan when frying – this will reduce the oil temperature and cause your vadas to soak more oil which we don’t want!
Soak the vadas in hot salted water for 15-30 minutes for soft, spongy vadas. The excess water is squeezed out before tossing them in curd.
Make sure to whip your curd – you can even add some cold water to it – to give it this smooth, pourable consistency that works so great here.
Coriander Mint Chutney Recipe - https://myfoodstory.com/green-coriander-chutney-recipe/
Tamarind or Imli Chutney Recipe - https://myfoodstory.com/tamarind-chutney/

Nutrition