Thavala Vadai | Mixed Dal Vada

Thavala vadai is a famous and traditional tea time snack in Tamil nadu. Though it has a funny name(THAVALA means frog in Tamil and it also means a vessel seriously nobody knows why it's called so...).It is a highly nutritious snack variety , its rich in protein as we use 4 types of dals in it.Traditionally we add curd to the batter but I have avoided it because the vada will be a bit oily. In this recipe I have added mint leaves to give it an extra flavour.This recipe is similar to the ADAI recipe.

Ingredients

Raw rice-1/2 cup
Parboiled Rice -1/2 cup
Toor dhal-1/2 cup
Bengal gram dhal-1/2 cup
Green gram dhal-1/2 cup
Urud dhal -1/2 cup
Red chillies-8 nos
Small Coconut pieces -1 tbsp
Fennel seeds(Sombu)-1 tbsp
Asafetida -1/4 tsp 
Curry leaves,coriander leaves ,Mint leaves few
Salt to taste
Oil for frying

Method

👉Soak all the rice and dhal varieties except green gram dhal together for 1/2 to 1 hour.
👉Grind this mixture along with red chillies, fennel seeds, salt , asafoetida and finally add the soaked green gram dhal at the very end , grind everything to a coarse paste by adding very little water.
👉Now add the curry leaves, coriander leaves and mint leaves and mix everything together and set aside.
👉Heat oil for deep frying in a kadai, take lemon sized balls of the batter and put them gently into the hot oil and cook them till golden brown color is attained and the oil stops bubbling.
👉Remove the excess oil from the vadais using a tissue paper.
👉Serve hot with Coconut chutney,coriander chutney or sauce.

Serves-6
Preparation Time-45 mins

Note

✍️If you add curd (2 tbsps)the batter will be a bit watery so use a spoon and put a spoonful of batter randomly into the oil.
✍️I usually grind the batter very coarsely to have crunchiness of the dhals.
✍️You can make this vada in masala vada shapes too by making small patties but traditionally it is in random shapes only.