Friday, March 1, 2013

Parippuvada - Baked, Healthy version

Yesterday my hubby expressed a desire to eat some spicy snacks along with his usual evening Tea. I realized the complete absence of any kind of spicy snacks in the house that time.  Started thinking about the usual snacks that we used to have during childhood and suddenly remembered Parippuvada (Lentil Fritters), my favorite snack.My mom used to buy packets of parippuvada from her office canteen and I used to have it almost every week during my childhood. I was so fond of the parippuvadas that my mom used to put the ones that were not eaten that evening in Rasam for lunch the next day which I used to love as well. I guess, I had parippuvada so much in the childhood that when I started consciously staying from oily and deep fried food, it didnt take much effort from my end for stopping it completely.  It also helped that I was not staying in my home town because there were no easy availability of parippuvada in Hyderabad as per my knowledge ( good thing!!! otherwise I may have succumbed to temptations :) ) and those were the bachelor days when we didnt know cooking and was struggling... 

I remember that after my marriage when I was making an effort to learn something new, parippuvada was one of the dishes that I tried first. Needless to say, it was a flop. The vada didnt stay together. All I had to show my husband was a crumble of deep fried Dal and onion which tasted good I must say. 

After almost 2.5 years and after improving my cooking skills a little bit, I decided to make parippuvada today. How ever by now, I have developed a deep distaste for deep frying in oil which complicated matters a little bit. As usual I decided to replace deep frying by baking and I must say my baked parippuvada gave the same taste as the deep fried ones and did exceed my expectations. Here goes the recipe. 







Parippuvada (Lentil Fritters)

Prepping Time: 15 min excluding 2hrs of soaking the dals
Bake Time: 25 - 30 min
Total Time: 35- 45 min excluding soak time

Ingredients:

3/4 cup Toor Dal
1/4 cup Chana Dal
8 - 10 Shallots
1 Green Chilly
1 inch Ginger piece
5 -6 Curry leaves
1/4 tbsp Asfoetida (Hing)
Salt

Prepping:

Step 1: Wash Toor dal and Chana dal and soak them for around 2hrs.
Step 2: Clear the water used for soaking and spread the dals in a newspaper or Paper tissues for drying. You can either let it dry naturally and wait another hour to do so or leave them to dry for 15 min and then pat the excess water dry using paper napkins. 




Step 3: Grind the dals in a blender or mixie for a min or so without adding water. The dals should be coarsely ground. 




Step 4: Cut shallots, green chillies and curry leaves into very small pieces. Grate Ginger or cut into very small pieces.




Note: I use less spicy green chillies. Depending on the spiciness of your green chillies add them to the recipe. 
Step 5: Mix the coarsely ground dals, onion , green chillies , ginger, curry leaves, asfoetida and salt together. My mouth started watering because of the smell itself... Awesome mix of dal, ginger and curry leaves. 




Step 6:  Make small balls out of the dough. 





Method of Preparing:

Step 1: 

If you are baking: 

Preheat oven to 350F. Take a cookie tray  (Baking tray) and put parchment paper on it. Grease the parchment paper slightly with oil or butter.(Greasing is optional)

If you are deep frying:

Heat the oil in a deep bottomed pan. 

Step 2:

If you are baking:

Press your hand slightly on the parippuvada balls and arrange them on the parchment paper.  




If you are deep frying:

Press your hands slightly on the parippuvada balls and Put them in the hot oil and deep fry till golden brown. Take it off and remove excess oil using paper napkin. You are done now. 

Step 3:

Only if you are baking:

Keep the Baking Tray in the preheated oven. Let it bake for around 10 - 15 min.  Then turn the side over and let it bake another 15min. Switch off the oven and take out the vadas. A healthy (baked) Parippuvada is ready. Serve hot. Tastes awesome with a cup of Masala Tea




I am sending the recipe to MLLA 57 event, started by Susan of "The Well Seasoned Cook" and now being hosted by Lisa of "Lisa's Kitchen". This month MLLA is being hosted by PJ of Seduce your taste buds




Also sending the recipe to "Whats with my Cuppa?? started by Nupur and happening this month at Nivedhanam

2 comments:

  1. delicious... thanks for sharing both the version!!! Thanks for sending this yummy recipe to my event.. Looking for more yummy recipes...

    Sowmya
    Ongoing Event - HITS - Diabetic Friendly
    Ongoing Event - What is with my Cuppa?

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  2. Just today, I made parippu vadas at home by frying them in oil. Since I normally try to avoid fried food items, I was wondering if I could make parippu vada in my oven. But I was not too sure. Thank you so much for sharing this. I will try this soon.

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