Cabbage Vada - Breakfast Food - Indian Andhra Telugu Recipes

Ingredients:

• Black Gram – 150gms (3/4Cup)

• Cabbage – 250gms

• Salt – To Taste (1/4tsp)

• Ginger – Small Piece

• Green Chilies – 4

• Onion – 1 (50gms)

• Chopped Coriander – 1Tbsp

• Oil – For Frying

For Serving : Coconut Chutney Or Tomato Ketchup

(Online Conversion utility to convert Gms to Cups & Temperatures etc)

Preparations:

Soaking Dal:

Take black gram into a bowl and add water. Wash the dal and drain the water. Add water to the washed dal and soak overnight.

Other Preparations:

Arrange thin slicer blade in a food processor bowl and slice the cabbage. Take the thinly sliced cabbage into a microwave safe bowl and add salt. Mix well and place this bowl in a microwave oven. Cover the bowl partially and cook on high power for 4 minutes. Stir once and add 15ml water if required. Stir once again and place the bowl in microwave oven. Cover partially and cook on high power for 4 minutes. Cool the cooked cabbage and remove water by pressing. Use this cabbage water while grinding the dal.

Wash ginger and green chilies and make a coarse paste in a mixer grinder.

Peel the onion and slice it thinly.

Remove water from the soaked dal and grind to a smooth and thick paste. Add cabbage water while grinding, if required. Add very little water while grinding. As there is water in the cabbage water, add just sufficient amount of salt to the batter that too if required only.

Method:

Heat a pan and add sufficient oil to fry the vadas. Spread a paper napkin in a plate. After frying the vadas, place them on this paper napkin to soak excess oil. While the oil is getting hot prepare the batter.

Beat the batter with a spoon to make it light. To test, drop a small portion of the batter in a bowl of water. If the batter sinks that indicates the batter is not light yet – so beat for some more time. If the batter floats, that indicates the batter is light—start making the vadas.

To the prepared batter add ginger-green chili paste, sliced onions, cooked cabbage and mix well. Add chopped coriander and mix once again.

Take a portion of the batter with wet fingers and place it on a wet plastic sheet. Shape the portion of the batter with wet fingers like a vada. Carefully drop the patted vada batter into the hot oil. Fry two or three vadas per batch. Do not crowd the oil and fry more—allow space for the vadas to get fried in oil. Fry the vadas on medium heat till brown and crisp. Drain the fried vadas from the oil and place them on the paper napkin which will soak all the excess oil. Similarly fry vadas using the prepared batter. Serve the cabbage vadas hot with any sauce or chutney or as it is.

Points to Remember:

Soaking the dal overnight gives a right texture for the batter.

Add very little water while grinding the dal. Similarly add salt if required only as we have added salt while cooking the cabbage and the dal is ground with cabbage cooked water which has salt.

Cooking cabbage removes the rawness. Drain water from the cooked cabbage by pressing—if not the consistency of the batter changes. If there is more water in the batter, it will be difficult to shape the batter like vadas and such vadas when fried in oil will soak more oil. So remove all the water from the cooked cabbage and use very little water while grinding the dal.

Beat the batter to make it light. To test drop a small portion of the batter in a bowl of water. If the batter sinks, beat the batter for some more time till it is light. If the batter floats, the batter is light and start making vadas. Making the batter light is very important—otherwise the vadas will be hard and tasteless. In earlier days they used to grind the dal in a mortar and pestle—while grinding this aeration used to take place and it was not necessary to beat the batter separately. But in present days we grind the batter in a mixer grinder mostly which needs the step of aeration.