Medu vada

Urad dal                        1 cup (200g)

Raw rice                        2 tsp.

Curry leaves                 a few

Cilantro (chopped fine)  2 tsp.

Onion  (optional)            1

Cumin seeds (Jeera)    1 tsp.

Black pepper corns       1 tsp.

Salt                                   1 tsp.

Soak urad dal in 2 to 3 cups of water for 2 hours.

Drain the water.

Grind the dal in a blender without water or adding very little water (sprinkling water each time you think it is needed).

 Add jeera and pepper corns to the dough. You can pound them coarsely if you don't like them that way.

Add finely chopped onion and chopped curry leaves and cilantro.

Take a spoonful of the dough on wet palm, spread it a little with  slightly wet fingers. 

Keep it thick and round and make a hole in the centre with your index finger.

Slide it into medium hot oil.

Fry till golden and remove onto absorbent paper.

You can refrigerate the dough for a day or two. But don't prepare too much dough as it always better to prepare fresh dough for tastier vadas.

Take care to bring the dough to room temperature before frying vadas in case you are storing it. Serve hot with coconut chutney and/or onion tomato chutney. 

 Variation:

• Instead of  pepper and jeera, use 2 green chillies  chopped finely. You can add green chillies to pepper and jeera also, however reducing the quantity/number of all the three items.

• Add finely chopped cabbage to the dough along with green chillies and onion.
• Again, instead of cabbage, you can use palak/ spinach cut finely.
• Add grated carrot.

The rest is your creativity.