Appe pan dahi vadas
Delicious lentil fritters - not fried - dunked in flavoured yoghurt and topped off with lip smacking spicy and sweet chutneys. An absolute dreamy snack!
Equipment
- appe pan/aebleskiver pan
- Sauce pan
Ingredients
For the dahi vadas
- 1 cup skinless and split urad dal/urid dal washed and soaked in 3 cups water for 6 hours
- ¼ cup water
- 2½ cups yoghurt use vegan yoghurt for a vegan option
- 1 tsp asafetida hing
- 3-4 tbsp sugar or to taste
- 2 tbsp roasted cumin powder
- 1 tbsp pink salt
- oil for cooking
For garnishing
- ½ cup coriander leaves chopped
- chaat masala to taste
- red chili powder to taste
- pink salt to taste
For the green chutney - spicy chutney
- 2 cup coriander leaves roughly chopped
- 1 cup mint leaves
- ½ inch ginger roughly chopped
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 2-3 fresh chilis roughly chopped
- 1 clove garlic roughly chopped
- ¼ cup water
- salt to taste
For the sweet chutney
- ½ cup dates pitted and roughly chopped
- ½ cup tamarind seedless
- 1 cup jaggery
- 1 tsp ginger grated
- 1½ cups water
- 1 tsp pink salt
Instructions
- Darin the water from the soaked dal and add it to a mixer jar. Grind it to a smooth paste by adding as little water as possible. This may take about 4-5 iterations, but the lentils will eventually come together to form a smooth paste
- Empty this in a mixing bowl, add a teaspoon of salt and whisk it using your fingers, until it forms a light, airy batter. To check if it is so, once you finish whisking drop a dollop of the batter in a glass of water. If it floats and comes on top, you have got it right
- Before you begin cooking the vadas, mix the asafetida in 2 cups of lukewarm water and set it aside
- Grease your appe /aebleskiver pan and drop in two tablespoons of the dahi vada batter in each groove and cook them over medium high heat
- Once you see the under surface of each fritter dried and bubbles appear on the top, flip each of them and cook until golden brown on both sides. Remove and drop them in the asafetida infused water
- To the yoghurt as the salt and the sugar and whisk well, until there lump free. Keep it to chill in the refrigerator
- To make the green, spicy chutney, grind all its ingredients to a smooth paste. Remove and set it aside
- To make the sweet and tangy chutney, set a sauce pan with all ingredients under "sweet" chutney to cook over medium flame
- Once the jaggery melts and the syrup thickens, remove from flame. Let this cool down then blend it to a smooth paste
- To assemble the dahi vadas, in your serving dish place 2-3 tbsp of the seasoned yoghurt. Remove the vadas soaking in the water, squeeze them between your palms to remove the water, cracking them slightly and then place them on the bed of yoghurt. Top them with some ore yoghurt and the chutneys*
- Sprinkle over some chaat masala, red chilli powder, pink salt, roasted cumin powder and coriander leaves. Refrigerate for 10-15 minutes or serve your delicious appe pan dahi vadas right away and enjoy!
Notes
- If not overnight, you will need to soak the dal/lentils for a minimum of 4 hours
- You can also grind the dal/lentils in batches, so that it is easier to grind it to a smooth paste
- To make the roasted cumin powder, dry roast 2 tbsp cumin seeds until crisp and fragrant, remove from flame. Let it come to room temperature and then grind it to a fine powder. Store in an air tight container and use
- *You can add more of the sweet or the spicy chutneys as per your taste
- 1 cup = 250 millilitres
- tbsp - tablespoon
- tsp - teaspoon