Baked Medu vada is a healthy snack alternative to traditional medhu vadai. It is also known as ulundu vadai made with urad dal, onion, and green chilies.
A healthy version of medu vada:
A traditional medu vada is a deep fried dish. It tastes crispy on an outer side and soft in inner. It is a popular South Indian dish and serves for the breakfast with Ven Pongal or Idli and Sambar. I made it by baking to make it healthy by reducing the amount of oil. Baking medu vada tastes equally good to the fried version though it is not as soft and crispy as the original version. Medu vada is made with urad dal that is a white lentil-packed with nutrition, so baking helps to retain its nutrition.
Smart Cooking Tips:
The main part in making medhu vadai is grinding the urad dal to the right consistency.
- Soak the urad dal in cold water for minimum 2 hours. If you soak it for a longer time, you can easily grind it without adding more water.
- Sprinkle little amount of water while grinding to make soft and fluffy. If the batter the too thick then the medhu vadai will turn out thick and rubbery. If the batter is too thin then it will become difficult to make a perfectly shaped medhu vada (circle shape with the hole in the centre).
- If the batter is thin and you cannot able to make a shape. Don’t worry add rice flour to the batter and shape it.
- Adding water while grinding is purely depends on a quality of the urad dal.
I greased the baking tray with more oil, you can reduce it. Oil is used to prevent the vada from sticking to the baking tray.
How to make a perfect medhu vadai?
Making perfect medhu vadai is easy and simple, but you need a little practice with some tips. Two years back I used to grind the urad dal without adding a tsp of water also to the urad dal and ended in making hard and rubbery medhu vadai.
I learned the tip of adding water from my mom. Sometimes I also ended up in adding more water and find difficult to make it a perfect shape. So as I said in the smart cooking tips grinding the urad dal to the right consistency is important in making a perfect medhu vadai.
Baked Medu vada is a healthy snack alternative to traditional medhu vadai. It is also known as ulundu vadai made with urad dal, onion and green chilies.
- 1 cup URAD DAL
- 0.50 cup ONION CHOPPED
- 1 no GREEN CHILIES
- 0.25 cup CILANTRO (CORIANDER)LEAVES RAW
- 5 no CURRY LEAVES
- 0.75 tsp SALT TABLE
- 1 tbsp OIL
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Soak urad dal for at least 2 hours and drain the water completely. Grind the urad until it becomes soft and fluffy. Sprinkle water little by little in between and grind it to a right consistency.
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Add finely chopped onion, green chilies, cilantro, curry leaves, hing (asafoetida), salt and mix well.
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Pre-heat the oven to 420 degrees and grease the baking tray with oil.
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Take a little amount of batter and place in the baking tray. Make a hole in between the batter using a finger. Repeat this procedure with a rest of the batter.
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Make sure to arrange the medu vada with enough amount of space in between to cook evenly and bake in a pre-heated 420 degrees conventional oven on both sides for 20 minutes or until it gets cooked completely (turn the vadas after 10 minutes).
How to serve Medu Vada?
Serve Medu Vada as it is or with tomato chutney. You can also soak medu vada in hot sambar and make Sambar Vada or in seasoned curd (yogurt) and make Dahi vada.
Oviya says
Good alternate to regular vada