7 tips for the perfect oven baked chana dal masala vadai you’ll love every time
- Prep Time: 40
- Cook Time: 30
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Yield: 14
- Category: Snack
- Cuisine: Sri Lankan
Ingredients
- 500g chana dal
- 2 tsp cumin seeds
- 2 tsp fennel seeds
- 8 curry leaves
- 1 tsp Maldive fish (optional)
- 1 large red onion
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 2 cms ginger
- 1 green chilli
- A handful of finely chopped coriander leaves
- Salt
- Vegetable oil cooking spray
Instructions
- Soak the dhal in a bowl of cold water for two hours before draining and setting it aside
- Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celcius
- In a small frying pan, on low heat, dry roast the dried spices, and curry leaves. When the fragrance is released from the spices, take off the heat and set it aside
- Grind the Maldive fish in a pestle and mortar and set it aside
- Take the chana dal, and in a food processor blitz it into a grainy pulp – you should be able to see whole pieces of the dhal within the pulp. Tip this into a bowl
- In the food processor blitz the onion, garlic, ginger, green chilli and coriander – again to a pulp and tip into the bowl with the pulped chana dal
- Add the spices and the Maldive fish into the bowl with the chana dhal, add a little salt to taste
- Using your hands mix everything together
- Again using your hands mould the chana dal mix to a golf-ball sized ball then flatten to chubby disc. You’ll need to give the lentils a good squish and a squeeze for the chana dal to clump together
- I place the vadai onto a fish slice then nudge the vadai onto the baking tray, which I’ve sprayed with vegetable oil to prevent sticking
- You may need a couple of trays, and pop in the oven and bake for 30 minutes
- Take out, leave to cool, whip up a dip, and serve
Notes
Equipment needed:
- Small frying pan to dry roast the spices
- Bowl to soak the chana dal, another to mix the dal
- A colander
- A food processor
- Two baking trays
- A fish slice
Find it online: https://tootingmama.com/chana-dal-masala-vadai/