Masalvadai

Two big memories crowd my mind when I blog this dish -- The famous cry in the Pondicherry beach (was it) for "Samsa, Masalada, Samsa" and my dance classes... I used to get off the bus on Big Brahmin Street and head on to Mme. Sinhas's dance class and tuition with Ms. Dasappa...the bus would drop us off on (I think it is anna salai) and at the very corner of the street was the Andhi Kadai - He always set up shop at 5 and made fresh hot vadais. Amma gave me a rupee which got me about 5 vadais - fresh off the stove, steaming hot. The other Andhi kadai delicacy was the fried kadala-paruppu which was 10 paise per sachet ... Just good  chick pea stuff :)) Good fuel for all the energy i was to expend dancing and doing math!!!!

Now I make my masal-vadais as a homage to Andhi Kadai Narayanan who in my memory still makes the best Vadais! Funny how we carry all our childhood memories and tastes with us!
Ok- Long enough walk down memory lane - now to business

In Words
Ingredients
1 cup channa dal or kadala paruppu or bengal gram
4-6 green chillies
Oil to fry
1 BIG red onion
curry leaves
asafoetida a pinch

Preparation
Soak for exactly 1 hour, the dal, curry leaves, chillies
Drain all the water our of the dal - NO water needs to be used for grinding-
Grind coarse in the blender - (Use spatula to move the batter around)
Cut the onions small
In a pan place 1 tsp of oil and lightly fry the onions for about a minute or 2
Add it to the ground atta/batter and mix in
Add some safoetida and salt as well and mix in

Heat oil to fry
Flatten a small ball of batter on to your palm and drop it into the oil.. repeat until your pan has a sufficient number
Brown and remove and eat HOT HOT HOT
The unspoken ingredient would be Love without which no measurements work!

In Pictures