Dahi Bhalla are delicious and a must have for festivals & parties. Deep fried lentil melt-in-mouth
Vada with lots of curd, chutneys green and red, some sevs and green dhania sprinkled on top of it.
To make them extra soft and spongy, the deep-fried dumplings made from lightly spiced urad dal
batter – soaked in water before burying them under smooth and creamy layer of beaten curd. The garnish of red chilli powder, roasted cumin powder, sweet chutney and coriander leaves
gives it as good tempting look at it tastes!
A perfect dahi vada recipe starts with tender and puffy homemade fried lentil fritters that are
soaked in water, drained, and then covered in tangy whipped yogurt. These fluffy fritters
traditionally made with the ivory colored skinned urad dal, known as black gram or urad bean.
Try our other recipes: Dal – Pulses – Curry
Bhalla or Vada is also known as ulundhu vadai, uddina vade, minapa vada (Telugu) and uzhunnu vada.
Paruppu vada is an exclusive staple food authentic of Tamil Nadu made with yellow split peas
green chilies, whole red chilies onions and salt(nothing more nothing less).
Medu vada is traditional South Indian fritters made with urad dal (black lentils), spices and curry leaves. “Medu” is a Kannada word meaning “Soft” and “Vada” are “crispy Indian fritters”. So medu vada, also sometimes simply mentioned as “VADA” are essentially soft from inside yet crisp on the outside.
Tips and Tricks
- You can prepare vada from equal amount of moong dal and urad dal or only from moong dal.
- Chilled curd is better in taste you may beat curd in advance and then place it in a refrigerator to chill.
- Transfer fried vada into the warm water after they cool down completely and make sure
that they stay fully submerged in it. This will make them softer.
Dahi Bhalla
Ingredients
- ½ cup urad dal
- ½ cup moong dal
- ½ teaspoon salt or to taste
- ½ teaspoon cumin seeds
- water approx 1/3 cup water to grind the dal
- oil to fry the bhallas
- water to soak dals
To serve
- 2 cups curd 500 grams
- ⅓ cup green chutney to drizzle on top
- ⅓ cup tamarind chutney
- ½ tsp cumin powder roasted
- ½ chili powder red or degi mirch
- a few pomegranate seeds
- ½ cup chick peas boiled
- 1 potato boiled and diced
- salt to taste
- sev optional
- chat masala to taste
For the Sweet Chutney
- 250 grams tamarind pulp soaked in 1 ½ cup water
- ½ cup jaggery or to taste
- ½ tsp dry Ginger powder
- 1 pinch asafoetida
- 1 tsp red chili mirch
- ½ tsp rock salt
- ½ tsp garam masala
- 1 tsp oil
For the Green Chutney
- 1 cup coriander leaves
- ¼ cup mint leaves
- 1 Green chili
- ½ Inch Ginger chopped
- ½ tsp black rock salt to taste salt
- ½ tsp garam masala
- 1 teaspoon Lemon juice
- water to facilitate grounding chutney
Instructions
- Rinse the dals with water and soak overnight in 3 to 4 cups water.
- Drain the water and transfer the drained dal to a blender along with 1/3 cup water (approx), salt and cumin seeds and a pinch of asafetida. Add ginger also if you like.
- Grind the mixture to a smooth paste.
- Transfer to bowl for whisking. You can use a hand mixer here or use your hands and mix with a whisk/spoon.
- Beat at medium speed for 5 minutes until the batter doubles in size and becomes fluffy.
- To check if the batter is ready for frying, drop some of it in a bowl of water, it should float which means it’s airy and ready to fry.
- Heat oil in a kadai on medium heat. Oil should neither be too hot, nor too cold.
- Once the oil is heated, drop some batter into the hot oil or you may use spoon or small kadchi to drop batter in the oil.
- Fry the bhallas on medium heat, stirring often till it is golden brown. Remove bhalla on tissue paper or paper towel to soak oil.
- Once cool, put bhalla in warm water till they swell up.
- After the bhallas are soft squeeze each bhalla gently between your palms to drain water.
- Now whisk half of the curd and add bhalla into the curd or you may put bhalla in a bowl and pour curd on it.
- Leave it into refrigerator to cool.
- now whisk the remaining curd, add some salt and sugar to it.
- Take out the bhalla from the refrigerator, place each in serving tray.
- Then pour the whisked yogurt all over. Sprinkle some powdered jeera and garam masala and red chilli powder.
- Garnish with hara dhania, sweet chutney, sour pudina chutney, sev
