This is a guest post for Kavitha who blogs at Edible Entertainment. She recently started a new series “Cooking with Kin” and I am thrilled to be part of the same. Her blog features a wide variety of posts with detailed explanation and if I have to describe her in one word, it would be “bubbly”. . She always shows that excitement and enthusiasm in her comments and in her posts. She hosts a lot of events and also takes part in a lot. She does have a lot of energy .

Pic updated on 4/4/2013.

Healthy Version !!

Tasty snack.

Ingredients
1 cup channa dal soaked for 2 hours (Kadala Paruppu)
4 red chillies (Adjust to taste)
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
2 garlic cloves
Salt
3/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped coriander leaves
Oil to deep fry

Method
Soak channa dal and red chillies for 2 hours.

Take the dals and red chillies in a blender along with garlic, fennel seeds and salt.

Grind coarsely.

To the ground dal add onions.

Add coriander leaves.

Mix well.

Take a small portion of the mix.

Flatten to form a vadai.

Deep fry in hot oil.

Vadais are done when they are brown on both sides.

Healthy Alternative
A healthy alternative to the deep fried version is to use the kuzhi paniyaram pan. Heat the pan and add 1/4 tsp oil to each groove. Place a small portion of the dal mix in the groove.

Flip over after a couple of minutes or so and let the other side cook. Healthy vadai ready.

This is the low fat alternative and see it does not look too different .

This is the deep fried version.

Enjoy!