Thavala Adai

Recipe courtesy: Kamala (my grandma)
Photo courtesy: Padmini, Srinivasan (my parents)

This is a true delicacy!! It is a traditional recipe given to me by my Kamala paati. She makes the awesome thavala adais.
Mom made these adais few days back and sent me the picture!
(recipe reposted with picture)


Ingredients:
1 cup boiled rice (puzhungal arisi)
1/4 cup toor dal
1 half of a broken fresh coconut (grate it completely)
1 tsp jeera
1 tsp peppercorns
salt to taste
hing 3 dashes

Soak boiled rice (puzhungal arisi) for 2 hours and the toor dal for 1/2 hour.
Grind separately the soaked rice to a slightly coarse paste (like idly rava consistency).
Please do not add any water. The paste must be thick.
Grind the toor dal separately to a coarse paste (1 dal should be broken into 4 parts), again without water.
Mix the two pastes together evenly. Add grated coconut, jeera, pepper, hing, salt.
Mix evenly to a dough. Take out a ball of the dough and flatten it out in the shape of urad vadas (with the hole in the centre like a donut).
Use a heavy thick broad aluminium/ indalium kadai, add lots of oil (for about 2-3 inches on the surface).
Place these flattened out adais on the sizzling oil and roast evenly on either sides till golden brown and crunchy!!!
Served with molagapodi (chutney podi) and oil and some puli molagai (molaga thokku)

Since I don't have such beautiful traditional vessels or heavy kadais here, I just use the iron dosa griddle. Ofcourse, nothing like doing it the authentic way...It makes a huge difference!!