Vada curry recipe | Chennai style Vada curry recipe

Vada curry, a popular side dish served in Tamilnadu for dosa idli and poori. Vada curry is prepared by cooking coarse Dal mix in spicy coconut based gravy.

This vada curry recipe, today I am posting is Vellore style, which is almost the same as the popular Chennai method.

The Vada curry is not very popular in my home (my mom makes in Chettinad style rarely, which is not much different from this recipe) and I will post that style very soon.

I got this recipe from another dear friend Malar and she learned this recipe from her mum, who is one of the greatest cooks known in my circle. Malar’s vada curry recipe is very popular among friends and family, which is also a hit food in my family. Hence I thought of posting this wonderful Chennai style Vadacurry today in my blog.

As the name suggests, the method is cooking small chunks of Vada mixture in Spicy curry. In the Chettinad method, first they half fry the vadas and later the half roasted vadas are broken and added into the gravy. Here in this recipe, I do the same but instead of making Vada shapes and frying in more oil, I saute the mixture in few tablespoons of oil.

This curry uses the vada Dal/gram dal as the main ingredient. The origin of this vadacurry might have come from the preparation of leftover vadas cooked in spicy curry and served as fresh side dish for dosa.

Today I am posting this recipe as a side dish for pooris. But, honestly, according to me this is the best combination for dosas. You might have seen a popular combination in restaurants as set dosa with Vadacurry.

Give a try and this will become a regular recipe in your home.

Gram dal needs soaking time of minimum 2 to 4 hours. If you are planning for breakfast then you can soak overnight also.

Let us see this recipe with a video:

Vada curry recipe | Chennai style Vada curry recipe

Sangskitchen

Vada curry, a popular side dish served in Tamilnadu for dosa, idli, and poori. Vada curry is prepared by cooking coarse dal mix in spicy coconut based gravy.

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Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 30 minutes mins

Total Time 50 minutes mins

Course Breakfast, Main Course, Side Dish

Cuisine Indian

Servings 4

Calories 200 kcal

Ingredients

  

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Ingredients:

To soak & grind:

• 1 cup gram dal
• ½ tsp fennel seeds/sombhu
• ¼ tsp turmeric powder
• ½ tsp salt

To temper:

• 4 tbsp oil
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 cardamom
• 2 cloves
• 2 small cinnamon sticks
• 1 Green chilli

Other ingredients:

• 1 Big onion
• 6 garlic pods
• Few Curry leaves
• 1 Tomato
• 1 tsp Chili powder
• ¾ tsp coriander powder
• ¼ tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp salt

To grind:

• 2 tbsp coconut
• 1 tsp fried gram
• 1 tsp Jeera

To garnish:

• Few coriander leaves

Instructions

 

Preparation:

• Wash and soak gram dal for a minimum of 2 hours (you can soak overnight also).
• After soaking, gram dal usually increases in volume. Hence add water accordingly.
• Drain the water completely. Take a mixer, add soaked drained Dal, sombu/fennel seeds, turmeric, and salt.
• Grind into a coarse mixture as shown. Keep aside.
• Chop onions, tomatoes, and crush garlic.
• Grind coconut, jeera and fried gram into a fine paste.

Recipe:

• First in a broad pan, heat 3 tablespoons of oil. Fry the coarsely ground dal mixture in medium temperature.
• Do not worry about lumps. Fry the mixture until the raw flavor completely goes off. By this time you will get the aroma of masala vada.
• After around 5 to 7 minutes of continuous frying, you will get the texture as shown below.
• Remove from stove and keep it aside.
• Now heat oil in a kadai, add the whole spices, green chillies and roast until you get a nice aroma.
• Add chopped onions and fry in oil. Put some curry leaves.
• Now add crushed garlic. Crushed garlic gives nice strong curry flavor than chopped garlic.
• Saute for 2 minutes and add chopped tomatoes.
• Cook until tomatoes become soft.
• Now add chilli, coriander and turmeric powders and mix with the masala.
• You can add some water to cook the spices.
• Add the fried gram dal mixture into the masala and mix well.
• Sprinkle some water, so that the dal mixture incorporates well with the curry masala.
• You can close and cook for 5 minutes in low flame.
• Finally add the ground coconut, fried gram paste into the masala and mix well. Add a cup of water to adjust the consistency.
• Close with a lid and cook the coconut paste for 5 minutes until the froth settles down.
• Add the required salt for the curry.
• This Vada curry should have a thick curry consistency and not thin.
• Garnish with coriander leaves and the yummy vadacurry is ready to serve.
• Serve this with hot crispy dosa or set dosa or Idli or Pooris.

Notes

Tips/Notes:

1. Use gingelly oil for better taste.
2. Use a half teaspoon of garam masala if you like.
3. Instead of coconut paste, you can use coconut milk also. But coconut gives the better taste.

Nutrition

Calories: 200kcal

Keyword chennai vada curry, vada curry, vadacurry, vadakari

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Pictorial:

Preparation:

• Wash and soak gram dal for a minimum of 2 hours (you can soak overnight also).
• After soaking, gram dal usually increases in volume. Hence add water accordingly.

• Drain the water completely. Take a mixer, add soaked drained dal, fennel seeds/sombhu, turmeric, and salt.

• Grind into a coarse mixture as shown. Keep aside.

• Chop onions, tomatoes, and crush garlic.
• Take coconut, jeera and fried gram in a blender and grind into a fine paste.

Recipe:

• First in a broad pan, heat 3 tablespoons of oil. Fry the coarsely ground dal mixture in medium temperature.
• Do not worry about lumps. Fry the mixture until the raw flavor completely goes off. By this time you will get the aroma of masala vada.

• After around 5 to 7 minutes of continuous frying, you will get the texture as shown below.

• Remove from stove and keep it aside.
• Now heat oil in a kadai, add the whole spices, green chillies and roast until you get a nice aroma.

• Add chopped onions and fry in oil. Put some curry leaves.

• Now add crushed garlic. Crushed garlic gives nice strong curry flavor than chopped garlic.

• Saute for 2 minutes and add chopped tomatoes.
• Cook until tomatoes become soft.

• Now add chilli, coriander and turmeric powders and mix with the masala.

• You can add some water to cook the spices.

• Add the fried gram dal mixture into the masala and mix well.
• Sprinkle some water, so that the dal mixture incorporates well with the curry masala.
• You can close and cook for 5 minutes in low flame.

• Finally add the ground coconut, fried gram paste into the masala and mix well. Add a cup of water to adjust the consistency.
• Close with a lid and cook the coconut paste for 5 minutes until the froth settles down.

• Add the required salt for the curry.

• This Vada curry should have a thick curry consistency and not thin.
• Garnish with coriander leaves and the yummy vadacurry is ready to serve.

• Serve this with hot crispy dosa or set dosa or Idli or Pooris.

Tips/Notes:

1. Use gingelly oil for better taste.
2. You can use a half teaspoon of garam masala if you like.
3. Instead of coconut paste, you can use coconut milk also. But coconut gives the better taste.