Parippu Vada / Masala Vadai / Aama Vadai – Spiced Lentil Fritters

This is a request from a dear friend P. I made this for tea during one of our “meetings at each others place”. 3 of us friends – M, P and I used to meet at one of our homes for a whole day during the week – lunch and tea. We got to sit and chat a lot but the main motive was to eat good homemade food cooked by someone else. We all know how we get bored of eating food cooked by you all the time. With each one of us getting busy with stuff happening in our lives we haven’t met in a while and don’t know when we will next meet – just the 3 of us. Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Parippu Vada, as it is called in Kerala or Masala Vadai / Aama Vadai as it is called in TamilNadu is a favorite and very common teatime street food that you get in Thathukadas (street food stalls). It is best served with “cutting chai”, which is milky frothy tea served as 1/2 or 1/3 portions and is meant to be shared.

At home, these fritters are made mostly during festivals as an accompaniment to the sweet payasam (pudding) or kesari/halwa at breakfast. When amma makes it for festivals, she generally doesn’t add any onions. It still tastes awesome though! I have seen that a lot of recipes use toor dal or a mix of toor and masoor dal for this, but amma has always made this with chana dal and that is how I like it! So, by no means am I claiming this as an authentic recipe ( well, who decides what is authentic anyway!) – it is a very traditional recipe as far as I am concerned and I can vouch for its taste.

Parippu Vada / Masala Vadai / Aama Vadai Recipe 1 cup chana dal / kadala parippu / split polished baby garbanzo beans , soaked in water for about 2-3 hrs 4-5 dried red chillies , soaked with the dal 1/2 red onion, finely chopped 3-4 thai green chillies, chopped a sprig of curry leaves, torn 1/4 tsp asafetida salt, to taste canola oil, for deep frying

Grind together the dal and red chillies in a food processor using no extra water other than that you get in your hands while straining the lentils from the water to the food processor. Do not grind it to a very smooth paste. Let it be a little grainy, that's where it gets its crispiness a little from. The consistency should be as thick as possible. ( Visit DK of Chef In You's post on this recipe for step by step pictures and to know just how the consistency should be like) Add the rest of the ingredients to it and mix well. Heat the oil in a pan. Make lemon sized balls of the lentil mixture and flatten it out on your palms and drop it into the oil. Deep fry till it is golden colored and crispy on both sides. Serve hot with coconut chutney or just plain ketchup. Ohh and don’t forget the chai!!This is another entry to MLLA 21 hosted here on Mirch Masala. The previous editions of MLLA can be found here.