Bread Dahi Vada
Dahi vada with no dal to soak and nothing to fry — bread rounds dipped in milk, dressed with whisked curd and both chutneys.
Drafted — not yet cooked in our kitchen
- Hands on
- 17 min
- Total
- 59 min
- Serves
- 4
- Difficulty
- easy
Everything here is assembly except the two chutneys, and the only step that can actually be failed is the dip. Bread in cold milk for two seconds comes out damp and intact; the same bread at five seconds is paste on your palm. Test one round first, then do the rest to that count.
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Ingredients
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Method
Put the dates, tamarind and jaggery in a saucepan with the water and simmer until everything has gone soft and collapsed. Stir now and then — jaggery catches on the base and a burnt note runs through the whole chutney.
Look for: The dates have lost their shape and crush against the side of the pan with no resistance, and the liquid has darkened to the colour of strong tea.
12–18 min · low heat · saucepan
Cool it, then grind smooth and push it through a sieve — the tamarind fibre and date skins will not break down however long you run the mixer. Stir in the cumin powder, dry ginger and black salt. It should pour off a spoon in a thick stream.
Look for: Thick but pourable, like honey warmed slightly. It thickens in the fridge, so leave it looser than you want it.
4–6 min · mixer-grinder
Grind the coriander, mint, green chilli and lemon juice with a splash of water to a thick green chutney. Keep it thicker than a dip — it is going on in drops, not spoonfuls.
Look for: Bright green and thick enough to hold a heap on a spoon.
2–3 min · mixer-grinder
Whisk the curd with the sugar and salt until it is completely smooth and pourable. Whisk it properly — lumpy curd on a dahi vada looks like a mistake, and a minute with a fork fixes it. If it is very thick, let it down with a little milk.
Look for: Falls off the whisk in a smooth ribbon with no grain in it. Sour curd makes a sharp dahi vada — if yours is on the turn, more sugar will not hide it.
2–3 min · bowl
Cut a round out of each bread slice with the rim of a small katori. Pour the milk into a shallow dish. Dip a round, count to two, lift it out and press it gently between your palms — barely a squeeze. This is the whole recipe and it goes wrong in about a second: bread held in milk for five seconds comes out as paste and cannot be recovered.
Look for: The round is damp all the way through, floppy but still one piece, and holds together when lifted flat on your fingers. If it tears as you lift it, dip the next one for a shorter count.
5–8 min
Lay the rounds in a single layer in the serving dish and pour the whisked curd over them so each one is covered. Then the sweet chutney in a zigzag, the green chutney in drops, and the spice powders dusted over the top.
Look for: Every round is under curd with none of the bread showing through. Bare patches go dry in the fridge.
3–5 min
Cover and chill. It needs the time — straight after assembly the bread is still bread and the curd is sitting on top of it rather than in it.
Look for: The rounds have swollen slightly and softened into the curd, and a spoon goes through one without resistance. Scatter the sev and coriander at the table, not before — sev goes soft in minutes.
30–60 min
Sev and chopped coriander over the top as it goes to the table.
1–2 min
About this dish
This is a shortcut and worth being honest about it: a real dahi vada is urad dal soaked, ground, aerated and fried, and it has a spongy chew that bread does not reproduce. What bread does give you is the same plate in twenty minutes with no frying, which is why it turns up so often when people are cooking for a crowd. Both chutneys keep for a week in the fridge and the sweet one freezes, so the useful version of this recipe is to make them once and assemble in ten minutes whenever you want it.