Spending vacation at home is the most boring thing in the whole wide universe! And I am in that situation these days and I feel like a tree in the dense forest who does nothing but swiftly sway to the occasional wind. Not really, I mean, I’m too chubby to sway to swift winds.:p
So, I’ve been trying to use my time in a more ‘fruitful’ manner.Key word, trying. And I came across this amazing recipe on a magazine and tried it out. And guess what? Nah, you guessed it wrong. I actually managed to get it right!
This is known as ‘Wade’ in my mother tongue which is Sinhala. In case you have not heard of it, it is spoken only in Sri Lanka a tropical island in the Indian ocean. So, back to food! Once I started making this I couldn’t wait until I tasted it and once I tasted one I couldn’t wait until I tasted the next one…and so on it goes. Not that I’ve not eaten I before, but nothing is as fun as making street food at home. Yeah, it’s street food here. Not only the locals but also the loads and loads of foreigners who visit our tiny island, repeatedly fall in love with this ‘wade’.
This is made of ‘parippu’ or ‘dhal’ which is generally how ‘lentils’ are known in our language. I really really fell in love with it (no, it wasn’t love at first sight :p) and wanted to share the recipe with all of my lovely reader…:D
INGREDIENTS– 500g Indian Dhal
I large onion
Garlic (2 cloves)
2 branches of curry leaves
2 tbs ground chilie pieces
Salt to taste
Vegetable oil
Cooking Instructions:
Note: Prepare the dal the night before you plan to cook vada by putting the dal in two separate bowls filled with water and leave it overnight to soften up.
1. Wash the dal and remove the water from the bowl.
2. Remove the curry leaves from the branches and cut them into small pieces. Cut the onion into small pieces as well.
3. Put Indian dal into blender with up to 3 tbsp of water and blend into small pieces.
4. Take the Indian dal out of the blender and put in back in the bowl. Add chili pieces, salt, onion pieces and curry leaves to the Indian dal and mix everything together.
5. Form the mixture into small, 1 inch wide balls and flatten them.
6. Heat about 1/8 of a one-liter bottle of vegetable oil in a frying pan and fry the vada on medium flame until they’re light brown. Flip the vada halfway through to make sure both sides are equally gold brown.
So, that’s how it’s made. (source-http://www.bestsrilankanrecipes.com/parippu-vada-dhal-wade/)
If any of you happen to visit Sri Lanka by any chance don’t ever ever forget to goggle down a tasty ‘wade’. The ideal place in Sri Lanka to savor a wade is the ‘Galle Face Green’. There ‘wade’ is found with a bit of mouth-watering twist. They add shrimps on the top of ‘wade’ and your taste buds will never let you leave after just one.
For everyone who loves some some tropical island fun.
Love,
THARUSHI…:D
Sparkle and Shine brighter! 