Keerai Vadai made with greens and soaked and ground urad dal. Crisy and crunchy keerai vadai recipe. Perfect tea time snack. Recipe with step by step pictures.
Keerai Vadai makes for a perfect evening snack. Its a famous thing in the evenings at South Indian tea shops. Its crispy and crunchy and goes perfectly well with tea. Its made with soaked and ground urad dal and added greens. Usually, Arai keerai or Siru keerai is used for this recipe. Its a variety of green amaranthus. You may use any kind of amaranth leaves and it works fine. Here is how to do Keerai Vadai.
Usually for vadai made with urad dal, I like to use unpolished whole white urad dal. Try to avoid split urad dal, nylon urad etc… Soak the urad dal in water for couple of hours. Drain the water used for soaking and grind the urad dal in a mixie to a paste. Do not add any water while grinding. Add a teaspoon if the mixie would not budge. Add it only if it is really necessary. The texture should be thick and very very slightly coarse for keerai vadai. Set aside.
Add in the finely chopped veggies namely onion, ginger, curry leaves, green chillies, coriander leaves and keerai. Add in the salt and asafoetida. If you like a spicy vadai, add in more chopped green chillies. Mix well to combine. Keerai vadai batter is ready.
I like to use SSP asafoetida at home. Its very aromatic and flavorful. You may buy the products here. To know more about their products visit their website www.sspandian.com .
Heat oil in a kadai until hot. Now lets shape the vadas. The trick to shaping the vadas is dipping the hands in water. The urad dal batter wont stick to hands if the hands are moist and wet. Take a gooseberry size ball on the palm and flatten it. Flatten it as a thin round. Make a small hole in the middle. If shaping the vada in the palm is difficult, you can shape it on a plastic cover. Just wet the plastic cover with a few drops of water and shape the vadas on the cover and gently remove the batter and add it to the oil.
Add it to hot oil. Keerai vadai takes time to cook. Around 5-6 minutes for every batch. The vadai should be really brown and golden. The vadai should be crispy and should have a little crunch on the bite. So be patient and fry till the vada is really golden.
Serve the Vada with white coconut chutney and masala tea .
- 1/2 cup whole white urad dal
- 1 cup chopped keerai-greens, finely chopped
- 1 onion,finely chopped
- 1/4 inch piece ginger, finely chopped
- 1 sprig curry leaves, finely chopped
- 2 - 3 green chillies, finely chopped
- 3 sprigs coriander leaves, finely chopped
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- a big pinch of asafoetida
- Soak the urad dal for couple of hours. Drain the water and grind the urad dal to a thick paste.
- Add in all the veggies and salt. Mix well to combine.
- Shape the vadas.
- Fry them in hot oil for 5-6 minutes till golden. Serve hot!
- Author: Kannamma - Suguna Vinodh
- Prep Time: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Category: Appetizer
- Cuisine: Tamilnadu
- 1/2 cup whole white urad dal
- 1 cup chopped keerai-greens, finely chopped
- 1 onion,finely chopped
- 1/4 inch piece ginger, finely chopped
- 1 sprig curry leaves, finely chopped
- 2 - 3 green chillies, finely chopped
- 3 sprigs coriander leaves, finely chopped
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- a big pinch of asafoetida
- Soak the urad dal for couple of hours. Drain the water and grind the urad dal to a thick paste.
- Add in all the veggies and salt. Mix well to combine.
- Shape the vadas.
- Fry them in hot oil for 5-6 minutes till golden. Serve hot!
- Author: Kannamma - Suguna Vinodh
- Prep Time: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Category: Appetizer
- Cuisine: Tamilnadu
Find it online : https://www.kannammacooks.com/keerai-vadai-recipe/
Asafoetida, perungayam (பெருங்காயம்), hing – is the most common spice found in every Indian Kitchen. The spice is extracted from the rhizome of the Ferula plant. Its a dried gum resin. I received SS pandian Asafoetida for product review. SSP has three types of asafoetida for home use. The regular powder, granules and the newly introduced ultra powder. To know more about their products visit their website www.sspandian.com .
Non-Indians find the smell of asafoetida very strong and compare it with the smell of dung. In-fact its called as Teufelsdreck in German which just means devils dung 🙂 . Famed Indian cookbook author Madhur Jaffrey mentions asafoetida as the Indian truffle. Truffle or not, it has a precious place in the Indian kitchen.
SSP regular asafoetida powder
The first thing that hits you when you see SSP products are that its expensive. Its expensive when compared with other brands available in the market. SSP asafoetida is very strong and the aroma that wafts your kitchen when you unpack the box is testimony to the same. Its very potent and a pinch of SSP is all you need to add. The smell is so concentrated and you will sure notice the same when you add it to hot oil.
SSP Ultra Powder This is a newly introduced variant that’s a very fine powder.
I added a pinch while making tadka for my chutney and the result was really good. A little goes a long way and its so true with SSP asafoetida.
SSP Crystal Asafoetida / Granules
I think that this must be their signature product. I still remember breaking the asafoetida block using hammer or a mortar-pestle in the olden days as it will be so solid like a brick. SSP crystal asafoetida is a relief that it comes in an already granular form. Granules are generally used for curries / kuzhambus that has a tamarind base. It adds a nice depth to the curries. Try my Puliyodharai recipe using SSP asafoetida. The packaging of the asafoetida powder. The powder comes packed and you need to unpack the powder and add it to the box. But honestly, its a little troublesome. A little powder spills when you cut the pack and one needs to make sure that the pack is facing directly over the box so the spill goes into the box. You do not want to waste the precious perungayam even if its very little. Its not a great trouble but I feel that the unpacking of the powder into the box makes it little messy.
