I am a serious believer in God made hands before man made cutlery. I use my hands a lot when I cook: to mix, to scoop, to feel. As can be evidenced here.
Fork it
Even so, I do stop to listen when friends like Jen show me how to keep my hands clean and make deep fried goodies, like batata vada.
This is one of the techniques Jen learned at the Culinary School of the Rockies while making truffles dipped in tempered chocolate.
No more washing of hands between each set of batata vadas dropped into hot oil! What can I say but thank you, Jen!
For those of you who cannot view the video, here are the instructions:
- Prepare batata vadas and the batter according to the recipe.
- Drop the batata vada into the batter and using the spoon, coat it well with the batter.
- Pick up the coated batata vada in the spoon and move it to the fork to let excess batter drain through the prongs of the fork.
- If you wish, move the vada from the fork to the spoon and back a couple of times to shake off more batter.
- Wipe off the drips from the underside of the fork using the spoon and slide the vada gently into the hot oil.
- Fry until golden brown.
- Drain on a cooling rack to keep vadas crisp and prevent them from flattening out. (Yet another tip from Jen!)
It's exactly two years since I posted the recipe for batata vada. I am very ashamed to say that I have not yet mailed the coasters mentioned in that post to the winning bidder as yet. The first set of coasters that Medha made was ruined by bad quality glitter spray, the second set had poor quality tiles which cracked, the third set fell and broke. We wondered why something we had breezed through earlier suddenly became such an uphill task. The winning bidder has probably given up on us but we didn't give up. We persevered through summer and I am happy to say, we conquered. Kind of. The tiles are ready, waiting to be shipped. They are two years late but better late than never.
Tiles aside, does anyone see the irony of it all?
Update: I am sending this Handy Tip to the Back to Basics Event hosted by Aqua Daze, started by Jaya Wagle.
12 comments:
Yes, better late than never!
I was able to use Jen's technique last week while frying batata vadas with my friend, but mine did not come out like your perfect globes!
While we are on the subject of tips, I found out (in my marital home) how easy it to prevent bitter cucumbers from making it into salad - taste them before you add them to it! I know it sounds stupid, but I then shared the tip with the rest of my family and they were as please as I was! :)
Talk about 'amazing coincidences! That 2 year old post of yours - OMG! Now, that is what I call a providential coincidence! Praise the Lord!
She has such lovely long fingers :)
And oh what a perfect vada!
Am terrible when it comes to frying, thanks a lot for tutorial :) this will protect my fingers from frying :p lovely vada!
That's a really good tip. I make vadas for a party I would be more comfortable with my hands till I get used to this technique. One thing good about this technique is there is no chance of drops of water falling into the hot oil causing an accident. That happens when you are frying any batter and washing your hands between batches.Thanks Manisha and Jen! Special thanks to the model, Medha!
A very handy tip, I have to say. And you even managed to do a video! Who would have thought what works for chocolate truffles would work for batata wadas too! Isn't life full of surprises?
as a mom, i totally understand why you would want to do this with without getting your hands messy. You always have to have one clean hand for the kids.
:) This is fun - wish we could have a way for doing this with medu wadas as well, but then there's the hole in the wada Dear Eliza...;)
Such pretty fingers no wonder she plays the piano so well. And the vadas look absolutely delish.
that's a great tip. I mean honestly it is. But I don't think I can ever resist the fast and quick dip with hand and shaking of excess method. Yes it makes a mess but I have no patience for Fork and Spoon.
This is a helluva useful tip! Can I please link to it from my blog? (http://www.scatterthebatter.com)
Nice tip! Thanks! Medha's piano work is cool! :) Cheers!
Hahahahaha! superb post, and even i do it this way..anything to prevent yellow dried-up batter below my finger nails! :)
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