Sabudana Vada

Rains are here and last weekend it just didn't stop pouring. It was just wet everywhere because the rain is just drizzling throughout. So its cold and the only thing one would want to go is sit idle in a cozy place and read. But one can't. Because when its cold, you tend to get hungry everytime or would crave for something to munch on. We don't usually give in to fried stuff at home. But my lil one likes it and so we do make them sometimes.

Some sabudana had been sitting in my pantry for sometime and everytime I open the cabinet, I think of putting it into use. So finally today, I gave in my laziness and made these vadas for our tea. They were just perfect to pair with some ginger tea.

Give these a try. They are just the right stuff to indulge in this cold weather.

Ingredients

1. 1 cup of Sabudana or Tapioca pearls
2. 2 medium sized potato, boiled, peeled and mashed
3. 1/2 cup of peanuts, dry roasted and coarsely ground
4. 1/2 tsp of ginger paste
5. 2 green chillies, finely chopped
6. 1 tsp of cumin seeds
7. 1/2 tsp of red chilly powder 
8. 2 tbsp of chopped coriander leaves
9. 3/4 tbsp of lemon juice
10. 1 tbsp of sugar
11. Salt to taste 
12. Oil for deep frying

Method

• Rinse sabudana with water, untill water clears up. Soak it in enough water for about 6-7 hours. They would double in size. Drain out excess water and keep it aside, in a bowl.
• To the bowl of sabudana, add the ingredients 2-11 and mix well. It would form a slightly sticky dough like mixture.
• Heat the oil in a deep frying pan. Once the oil is hot, turn down the heat to medium.
• Meanwhile make small balls of the mixture and press them in between your palms gently. Drop them into the heated oil and fry them untill the surface of the vada turns brown. 
• Drain off excess oil from the vada and place it on a paper napkin. Serve it hot with sauce or chutney of your choice.

Tips

1. Make sure you drain out the excess water from the soaked sabudana/ tapioca pearls completely.
2. You could add two tbsps of rice flour to make the vadas crisp.
3. While giving the vadas their shape, by pressing them between the palms, do make sure that there are no cracks formed on the vadas. Else, they may break and may not result in the desired shapes.
4. The oil should not be too hot while dropping the vadas into it else they would get burnt. Also do not drop the vadas in the oil before it is heated, else the vadas would absorb more oil and also break apart. Hence maintaining the heat, so that the oil is at moderate temperature to fry the crisp and perfect vadas, is very important.