Desai Vada/Khata Vada
Desai Vada/Khata Vada are spicy multigrain deep fried nuggets, very popular in Gujarati Desai community.
This little deep fried goodie is very popular in South Gujarat, especially in desai community! I grew up eating this on either auspicious days or during wedding time! I remember my grand ma always made it for Diwali, Divaso and Randhan Chhath. Randhan Chhath is a day when you cook a lot of food so that there is no next day cooking. As the next day is called Shitala Satam. Shitala, also called Sitala, is a Hindu goddess widely worshipped in the Indian subcontinent, notably in North India. As an incarnation of Supreme Goddess Durga, she cures poxes, sores, ghouls, pustules and diseases, acclaimed by Hindus. People specially women’s of the family worship goddess Shitala and pray for good health of her family. They eat food made (generally vadas) on previous day, as called cold food. The faith behind this is this will prevent diseases ori and similar.
These vadas also also made when new bride goes to her husband’s home and takes these vadas, puri and ladoo with her. I honestly do not know the purpose of it. I would think, it is to help her with no cooking in the new home as everything would be so new to her. But I could be wrong! These vadas go so well with doodh pak/kheer or just simple masala chai! They stay good for days, especially if stored in a refrigerator.
These are honestly one of those rare foods from India that you wouldn’t see on regular. I urge you to give these goodies a try. You will surely love it! If you end up making them and liking them, tag me on Instagram @myvegetarianroots. I would love to see your recreation of this goodie!
Happy and Healthy Eating!
Desai Vada/Khata Vada
Ingredients
- 1 cup Coarse Wheat Flour
- 1 cup Regular Wheat Flour
- 1½ cup Jowar Flour
- ¾ cup Urad Dal ½ cup to make dry powder & ¼ cup for soaked urad dal to make paste
- ¼ cup Methi/Fenugreek Powder
- ½ cup Oil
- ½ cup Desi Whole Milk Yogurt
- ¼ cup Jaggery
- 2 tbsp Thai Green Chili and Ginger Paste
- 4 tsp Red Chili Powder
- 1 tsp Sanchoro or Baking Soda
- 2 tsp Turmeric Powder
- 1 tbsp Garam Masala
- 1 tbsp Dhana Jiru Powder cumin coriander powder
- 1 tbsp Salt
- 2 cup Warm Water more or less depending on batter consistency
- ¼ tsp Asafetida
- Oil for deep frying peanut oil is preferred
Instructions
Make Methi/Fenugreek and Urad dal Powder
- If you have ready made fenugreek powder, skip this step and go ahead and use that.
- If you do not have fenugreek powder, Dry roast whole fenugreek seeds while stirring it frequently. Roast it until it is about to change color and starts to form aroma. Once done, let it cool down.
- Grind it along with ½ cup of dry Urad dal into coarse powder. Keep it aside.
Make/Ferment the Batter
- Soak jaggery in little warm water to melt it. Keep it aside.
- Mix regular wheat flour, coarse wheat flour, Jowar flour and prepared fenugreek/urad dal powder in a big wide bowl.
- Add all the spices listed about, red chili powder, dhana jiru, garam masala, salt, chili ginger paste, asafetida, turmeric powder, sanchoro/baking soda. Mix it all well.
- Add yogurt, oil and jaggery water to the flour mix. Mix it well.
- Add little warm water at a time to make a thick batter. Usually it takes about 2 cups of warm water to get that thick consistency. You might need more or less depending on type of flours you have. It should be thicker than cake batter. Use your hands to mix the batter as it helps with fermentation.
- Once batter is ready, cover it with a tight lid and place in warm place for fermentation for about 8-12 hours. You can place it outside in sun during summer time, or place it in an oven with the light on during winter time (DO NOT TURN THE OVEN ON).
After Batter is Fermented
- Soak ¼ cup of urad dal in warm water for 30 minutes or so.
- Grind soaked urad dal with no to least water to a thick paste.
- Add that urad dal paste to fermented batter and mix well. Taste it and add more salt/spice if needed. Add more water if the batter got too thick during fermentation process. Again, the consistency should be thicker than cake batter.
- Heat up oil for deep frying.
- Once oil is hot, start dropping small balls (smaller than golf balls) of batter in hot oil very carefully. The heat should be on medium or just a bit more than medium. With right amount of heat, the vada should start coming to come the top of the oil and float while frying. Low heat with not hold the vada together and the batter will all fall apart in oil. Too high heat wont cook them from inside.
- Keep frying them on medium heat while turning them few times to make sure all sides get good brown color.
- Once vadas are nicely golden brown all around, take them out and place them on a paper towel. Once it is a little cool enough to hold and break, go ahead and break one in half. See if the inside is cooked by touching it and if it the batter does not stick to your finger along with some nice net like texture inside, the vadas are perfectly cooked.
- If by any change the vada is a little uncooked from the inside with cooking them for decent amount of time on medium heat, you need to add some hot oil to the batter and mix it. Add 1 tbsp at a time and do the same frying/opening/touching the batter test until you get it right!
- Deep fry all the vadas same way. It is best to place them in brown bag to soak up extra oil.
- Serve them with some kheer/doodh pak or chai along with masala puri! They stay good for up to a week in the fridge or up to 3 days at room temp.
