Maddur Vadai - A fried snack from Maddur

Maddur Vadai

In the 1940 – 50s, my grand father was employed in the Southern railways. Adorned in kakhi half trousers, a well pressed full sleeves shirt, brown belt and brown boots, stockings pulled up to the knee, and a hard bonnet like hat he looked every inch like a star from the western movies He was a very handsome old man with his bright set of real pearly teeth and an immaculate smile. As a child, I enjoyed traveling with him in the trains and felt very proud when all and sundry greeted my grandfather with great respect. Our family of six enjoyed the privacy of the first class compartment, and grand father never forgot to buy us the idly and maddur vadai parcels as soon as our steam engine pulled up into the Maddur railway station. The aroma of Maddur vadai filled the compartment even before we could unwrap the parcel made of news paper lined with dried muttugada yelae (a dried leaf which is used to wrap food). I still can not forget the aroma and the heavenly feeling which I experienced when the hot Maddur Vadai melted in my mouth .

My father too, never forgot to take a diversion to the Maddur Railway Station hotel to get a parcel of the vadais when ever he drove to or from Mysore. Later when the popular eatery - Maddur Tiffanys came into existence, we had an easy royal access to the Maddur Vadais right on the side of the high way. It has been 55 years since I started relishing Maddur Vadais. Yet I feel that nothing can beat the taste of the vadais, which grand father bought for us. I used to wonder with horror when my uncle teasingly said that the vadais I ate, were prepared out of engine oil and hence the taste!

There are various recipes with different proportions of the ingredients to make Maddur Vadais. Dibs has prepared the vadais with her version of ingredients and she said it turned out very well and melted in the mouth as it should do. I missed the taste but I am at least contented with the look of the virtual Maddur Vadais, which has brought out the old memories from my heart.

- Chitra

Ingredients
Fine chopped onions – 1 cup
Chopped Green Chillies – 2
Curry Leaves – a few
Cashew nut – 6 pieces broken into pieces
Plain unbleached flour or maida – 1 tbs
Rice flour – 2.5 tbs
Semolina (rava) – ½ cup
Salt – ¾ tsp or to taste
Unsalted Butter – 1 tbs (about 15 grams)
Sufficient Oil for deep frying 

Method
1. Mix onions, green chillies, curry leaves and cashew nuts in a large bowl
2. Add plain flour and rice flour and salt.
3. Next , add the semolina and toss everything together.
4. The butter should be straight out of the fridge, and not soft. Cut it into pieces and add it to the mixture.
5. Combine the butter with the ingredients, such that the mixture resembles bread crumbs. (If you are using salted butter, adjust the amount of salt you add in step 2 accordingly)
6. Now add just ½ tsp of water and combine everything into a smooth dough. Be careful, while adding water and add drop by drop – as even a drop of extra water will make the vada mixture dilute in seconds!
7. Heat oil in a pan.
8. Take a lump of batter and shape it like a ball. Then flatten it to about ½ cm thickness, and drop it into the oil. Wait until the vadai is firm, and then turn the side.
9. Fry until reddish brown and place it on a paper towel, to absorb any excess oil.
Note:I tried this vadai for the first time, and it was a little softer than the original Maddur Vadai! However its tasted superb. The next time I will probably avoid butter and use heated oil! While the butter makes the vadai very yummy, it made it very heavy too!

- Dibs
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I am updating this to send to the Just For You event at Sindhi Rasoi! It was just for my mom, aunt to remember their grandfather (my great grand father!), and of course, I really made this for my hubby who had never heard of this vadai before! 

- Dibs