Maddur Vada / Deep fried Spicy Onion crackers

Every place is well known for something or the other. It could be 'Taj Mahal' of Agra, could be 'White House' of Washington. At the same time, every place is (most of them at least) famous for some kind of food. Philadelphia is famous for Cheesecake, Bombay/Mumbai is famous for Pav Bhaji, Vada Pav. Mysore that is my home town (used to be, not anymore) is famous for 'Mysore Masala Dosa' and this place called 'Maddur' which is the center point of the route between Mysore and Bangalore is famous for these Maddur Vada or deep fried onion crackers. Can you believe that a handful of people make a living out of making these and selling at train stations and bus stands in this town.

There could be a number of recipes of the same floating around. I have worked on this recipe for few years now to get the perfect consistency I like basing my Father-in-laws's recipe. His recipes are one in kilograms, one in handful, one in numbers. I have come up with this fool proof recipe where the measure of ingredients is an easier one. And whoever has eaten this at my parties have loved it. I am posting this on the request of a reader. If not, I wouldn't have made them for no reason. These are quite addictive. You cannot stop at one. I can bet on that. One of my neighbors who doesn't care much about Indian food loves this so much, she remembers this more than any other food I have fed her.

One Year Back - Vegan Soudough Applesauce Pancakes
Two Years Back - Roasted Red Bell pepper Soup
Ingredients: 
Butter - 1/2 cup melted (1 stick)
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Fine Soji / fine semolina - 1 cup
Rice flour - 1/2 cup
Coarse Soji / Upma rava - 1/2 cup
Red onion - finely chopped and measured 2 cups
Green chillies - 30 chopped fine (Yes, no typo. You need this much and is not very spicy - See Notes)
Salt - 2 - 2 1/2 tsp or per taste
Cilantro - 1 cup chopped and measured
Oil - for deep frying

Method:
Add all the flours to the melted butter. Mix with a fork. Add green chillies, onions, cilantro, salt and mix. The whole mixture will be very crumbly. Add little bit little water about 1 TBSP at a time and make a stiff dough. Heat oil in a pan. It is better to take a wide pan instead of a deep one for this. Heat to medium heat. You don't want to fry these in very hot oil so it cooks on top and stays raw inside. On a wax paper or a ziploc cover, spray vegetable oil spray. Make small lime sized balls of the dough and place on the greased wax paper. Flatten it using the palm. You can make them thick but I like them thin. Make them as per your taste. Gently remove them from the wax paper and slide it into oil from a side. Deep fry few at a time and turn once or twice. When they are golden, remove them and drain them on a paper towel. Lot of people serve this with coconut chutney, but I like it as is. This can be used for up to 3 days at room temperature in a closed container if you can really save it till then. For this batch, I got about 40 vadas and if you make them thicker and bigger, you might get just 30.

Notes:
When you fry chillies, it loses quite a bit of spiciness. Frying behaves the same way pickling process does to any chillies. I used thai peppers I grew at home. If you use different kinds of peppers, use accordingly. You might need same amount of cayanne pepper (fresh ones, not the powder) and less of Jalapeno or serrano. You could use very hot oil in place of butter if you want to make a vegan version of it.

Enjoy.

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