What is Medu Vada?
Medu vada is a popular South Indian snack made from urad dal (black gram lentils) batter that's shaped into doughnuts and deep-fried until golden brown and crispy on the outside, while maintaining a soft and fluffy texture on the inside. To prepare medu vada, urad dal is soaked for a few hours and then ground into a smooth batter along with ginger, green chilies, and other spices like cumin seeds, black pepper, and curry leaves. The batter is then shaped into small rounds with a hole in the center, resembling doughnuts, and carefully fried in hot oil until they turn golden and crispy. Medu vada is typically served hot and crispy, often accompanied by coconut chutney and sambar, a flavorful lentil-based vegetable stew. It's a popular breakfast or snack item in South India and is enjoyed for its crunchy exterior and soft, fluffy interior, as well as its delicious blend of savory flavors and aromatic spices.
What does Medu Vada Taste Like?
Salty is one of the five main tastes. It has a satisfying and addictive quality with hints of sourness. Salty foods include cheeses, cured meats, chips, and olives. It is used in almost every dish and prepared food. Salt is added to enhance flavor and offer a distinctly salty taste.
Spicy is a flavor that brings heat and fire to food by creating a burning sensation in the mouth or sinuses. Spicy flavors come from hot peppers, horseradish, and wasabi. Spicy adds a kick and sometimes complexity to a dish and releases endorphins, creating a mildly addictive quality.
Ingredients
Yellow Urad Dal, also called yellow lentils are type of legume. The legume is hulled and split in half, so that one side of the tiny lentil is flat and the other is domed. Yellow urad dal is hard when dry, once cooked it becomes soft and has a texture that is both meaty and starchy. The flavor is mild, nutty and somewhat bland on its own. For this reason it pairs well with spices and seasonings.
The onion is a bulb vegetable, meaning its bulb and not its leaves are eaten. Onions come in many varieties, including white, yellow and red. Shallots are small and mild onions. Vidalias are sweet, while red onions are strong and sharp. The onion is usually round and has a thin dry skin around its juicy layers. This skin depends in the color of the onion, as does the flesh. The flesh, or body of the onion is made of multiple round layers, that get smaller towards the center. The flavor of onions are sharp and sweet when raw, with an astringent taste. When cooked, these flavors mellow and the sweetness emerges. Onion are a very common flavoring and ingredient for many savory dishes.
Vegetable oil is obtained by extracting oil from seeds. Types of vegetable oil include canola, sunflower, corn, and safflower. Light and with a neutral taste, vegetable oils are used to fry foods, or can be used to lightly coat meats and vegetables before roasting. Vegetable oils are also used as ingredients in salad dressings and sauces.
The green chili pepper is a spicy vegetable by culinary standards, but botanically it's a fruit. Green chili peppers have thin, green bodies with a tapered bottom. They are 2-3 inches in length with a one inch diameter. Their skin is a medium shade of green and is shiny and very thin. The flesh of the pepper is thin too and contains hot seeds in its center. It is an extra hot chili with a wonderful flavor and used in many dishes to add heat.
Cilantro is a leafy herb with a thin green stalk and small, partially fringed green leaves that look similar to a three leaf clover. It has a distinct smell that is similar to a lime and a flavor to match that. In addition, it smells and tastes the same and has a strong flavor with a hint of greens. Due to a genetic trait, some people find that cilantro tastes like soap. This herb is used in many cuisines, particularly from Asia and Central and South America.
The peppercorn plant grows in tropical climates and produces tiny black fruit. The fruit is dried and becomes hard. It has a flavor that is spicy, pungent and sharp. Pepper is an extremely popular spice, and lends a gentle heat to dishes. There are different varieties of black pepper and the flavor changes subtly because due to this.
Curry leaves are a small dark green leaf with tapered ends and a thin body. They are about in inch long and are often sold dried. Curry leaves are very aromatic and used in South and East Asian cuisine for its bright flavor. The flavor is almost citrusy, with a pungent note to them. They pair well in Thai and Indian dishes and add a pop of unexpected flavor, as they are often used whole.
Ginger is a spice whose root is used in food around the world. The root is grown underground and has a hard body and thin beige skin. The root has many rounded and long shoots and is often fat. The flesh of the ginger is golden colored with a flavor that is earthy, spicy and bright. Ginger is made into tea, used in sauces, desserts and savory dishes.
Cumin is a spice used in many cuisines around the world. The seed which cumin is ground from, has a thin and long body with tapered ends. Cumin is just a few millimeters in length and has a light brown or tan tone, which can look a bit grey. The flavor is spicy, earthy and nutty.
Salt is a mineral composed mostly of sodium chloride. It is the main flavoring used in food and is naturally occurring in certain foods, such as cheese, beets, meat and celery, plus many others. Salt is white and has finer granules than sugar. Many commercial salts include iodide, while others exclude it. Most salts are white, while some are naturally pale pink with minerals. Salt brings out the flavor of something and can create a tangy mouthfeel, if used in excess.
