Broccoli Garelu

Garelu/Medhu vada is an South Indian popular breakfast recipe. Garelu will be prepared for almost all festivals and functions. In restaurants, we can find garelu/vada in breakfast menu for sure. I wonder how many times I have garelu, I want them the next day.  I love them, not only me, they are many others favorite breakfast or snack.

In olden days, people used to make idly, dosa and vada batter by grinding dals using traditional stone grinder which is known as Rubbu rolu in Telugu. Rubbu means grinding and Rolu is a stone with a hole in the center. We are lucky and unlucky at the same time. Lucky to have electric wet grinders. But, unlucky as recipes made using ingredients that ground in traditional wet grinders tastes super delicious.

 I made plain garelu, cabbage garelu and thotakura (Amaranthus) garelu. This time, I want to try with broccoli. So I finely chopped broccoli and added to the urad dal batter and made garelu/vada which tasted delicious.

Yield : 20 

Ingredients:

• Minapappu/urad dal - 1 cup
• Broccoli -  1 cup
• Onion - 1
• Green Chillies - 5 (optional)
• Coriander leaves - 1/4 cup
• Salt to taste

Method:

• Clean black gram / minnapa pappu with running water and soak for 3 to 4 hours or over night.
• Drain the water and clean the black gram / minnapa pappu once again.
• Grind into thick paste by adding little water. (Don't add water at a time, add little by little if require)
• Finely chop broccoli, onion and chillies and mix into batter along with salt.
• Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Oil must be hot but don't let oil smoke. Take water in a bowl to wet your hand.
• Wet the figures and take small amount of batter and make into ball and flatten it on a plastic paper and make a hole in it at the middle.
• Drop it into hot oil carefully and cook on medium heat until it turns golden brown on both sides.
• Take them on to a tissue paper to absorb excess oil.
• Serve hot with chutney or sambar.

Note:

• Beat the batter to form aeration and to make the batter light. To check the fluffiness add little batter to a bowl of water. If the batter is floating aeration was formed in the batter, otherwise beat the batter again.   If  require add a tsp of water.  (Don't add more water at a time, add little by little if require)