For the final week of November, I chose to do Kid’s Delight. The theme this month is Veggies sneaked in dishes for kids. This was one theme which I couldn’t finalise on the dishes until the nth day. Yesterday I went and got three vegetables, but didn’t know what to do. So today morning I was brain storming with Sruti and finalized on the dishes. I have decided to make them for her snacks for three consecutive days. For first day, it is beetroot. Though beets is delicious, I have seen kids refusing it because it is a vegetable. Sruti likes beetroot as poriyal and cake. I also add it in pulaos and pooris to give them a nice colour.
Today’s vadai is made with toor dal and it is shallow fried in paniyaram pan. Nowadays I hesitate so much to deep fry stuff and the paniyaram pan comes to my rescue. Most of the dishes which needs to be deep fried are done in paniyaram pan so that the oil consumed is lesser. And I have used coconut oil instead of refined oil. I have completely stopped using refined oil in dishes for the past two years. So any dish which needs oil gets coconut oil. The vadai was supposed to be made with chickpeas which I thought was in freezer, but unfortunately it was not there. So I used the only dal available in house. But if you have channa dal, then use it instead. The taste would differ slightly. The addition of beets added a nice colour to the vadais, and after frying the kids won’t mind the beets in it. When I asked Sruti whether she would eat it, she said if it is crispy then it is ok with her. So I made a batch and waiting for Sruti to return home.
Makes 12 – 15 Vadais
Ingredients:
Toor Dal – 1 cup
Beetroot – 1, small
Red Chilly Powder – 1/4 tsp
Pepper Powder – 1/4 tsp
Salt – to taste
Coconut Oil For Shallow Frying
Procedure:
Wash and soak toor dal for 3-4 hours.
Drain water and grind it to a coarse paste.
Add grated beets, red chilly powder, pepper powder and salt and mix to form a thick batter.
Heat appe / paniyaram pan.
Add coconut oil in the moulds and add lemon sized ballas of the batter into them.
Cook until both sides are golden and crisp.
Serve them hot.
Beets Vadai Recipe
Ingredients
- Toor Dal - 1 cup
- Beetroot -1 small
- Red Chilly powder - 1/4 tsp
- Pepper Powder - 1/4 tsp
- Salt - to taste
- Coconut Oil For Shallow Frying
Instructions
- Wash and soak toor dal for 3-4 hours.
- Drain water and grind it to a coarse paste.
- Add grated beets, red chilly powder, pepper powder and salt and mix to form a thick batter.
- Heat appe / paniyaram pan.
- Add coconut oil in the moulds and add lemon sized ballas of the batter into them.
- Cook until both sides are golden and crisp.
- Serve them hot.
Sending this to Srivalli’s Kid’s Delight event, guest hosted by Srividhya, themed on “Veggies Sneaked in”
Catchy beets vadai, even am now using very much the paniyaram pan than deep frying.. Wonderful guilt free snacks there Gayathri.
Super will try it.. And ping you…
Love the idea of doing the vadai in the appe pan, consumes so much less oil. Even I use coconut oil for everything, even though deep frying still is with sunflower oil, though very very rare.
Love the addition of beets in a vadai recipe. Using the paniyaram pan is a great idea to make low calorie version of traditional vadai.
once I made these beetroot vada and we loved this super healthy snack. making in appe pan surely add an oil-less factor making it healthier. Mouthwatering and craving to have some now. I love such clicks when inside you can see, that makes you more tempted towards recipe.
Yum!! That’s an easy vada loaded with goodness. Kids will not be able skip the hidden veggie!!
love the vibrant color as beets are one of my favorite veggies – these look so good!
Simply too good Gayathri, its fantastic that Sruti got to enjoy these..making these in paniyams is so good!
That is a brilliant idea to use beets and the color of the vadai is just marvelous. Absolutely keeping aside a bit of beets to try this soon!