A cup of tea with something deep-fried is a wonderful treat. But unfortunately, deep-frying isn’t my cup of tea.

I am, in general, accident prone and that holds true the most when I am near anything hot. If I am ironing, at least one burn is guaranteed. If I am baking, you can be sure I will be doing the “OOOH hoo…AAH haa” dance at least once. So it’s not a surprise that I never trust myself to be anywhere near hot oil.

If I am deep-frying, I would first drop the batter from a height, thus making the oil splatter all around. That would be burn #1. I would realize the mistake and would go close and literally dip the batter into the oil with my bare hands. Burn #2. On both instances, I would rush and wash my hand in cold water and then would forget to wipe it properly. Thus resulting in burn #3, #4 and so on.

It’s no wonder that you never see anything deep-fried at my place. If its done, it’s mostly under someone else’s supervision (read – they fry, I stay away and watch). So I thought its time I took the matter into my hands…..without any more burns, I hope!

This is the first recipe towards a three-day deep fry special in this space. And no, I didn’t burn myself this time.

Pictorial

Grind one cup soaked and drained green peas with 2-3 green chillies, 2″ ginger piece, salt and half a teaspoon of fennel seeds.

The paste doesn’t have to be too smooth, so do not add any water for grinding.

Transfer the paste into a bowl and add a tablespoon of rice flour. Addition of rice flour helps in binding the batter, but this step is not absolutely necessary.

Mix well.

Take a tablespoon of batter, flatten it a bit to get the shape of a vada. Heat oil and deep fry in batches until the batter is used up. Serve with ketch up or any other dip.

Recipe source: A neighbor

Makes : about 8-9 small vadas

Ingredients:

• 1 cup green peas
• 2″ piece ginger
• 2-3 green chillies (or per taste)
• salt

• 1/2 tsp fennel seeds (optional)
• 1 tbsp rice flour (optional)

Method:

1. Soak the peas in water. Frozen peas should be soaked for half an hour, the dried variety should be soaked overnight.
2. Drain well and grind with ginger, green chillies and salt in a mixie jar. You can add fennel seeds (perum jeerakam) as well, it adds a good flavor to the vada. Stop grinding before its too smooth.
3. Transfer the contents to a clean, dry bowl and try to make a small ball out of it. If you have difficulty in forming the ball, then you might want to add some rice flour to bind the paste better. You can add rice flour and some semolina as well to get a good texture to the vada.
4. Heat oil in a pan and deep fry the vadas until golden brown. Serve with ketch up.

Notes:

• My friend had made it with just green peas, ginger and green chillies. The ginger was main ingredient imparting the flavor.
• I have used frozen peas here, the dried version should also work well. You might want to soak it overnight.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#54