The Lonesome Road

Today’s spur-of-the-moment dish was Dal wada (lentil puffs for those who do not follow hindi).

Unfortunately, in his enthusiasm, my roomie added a little too much water to the batter turning it from a thick paste to a watery mess. Ordinarily, we would have dumped this mess down the drain - but my roomie was adamant that he wanted to eat this today. So we put two brains - one engineering and one medical to work.

This is the solution we worked out - and it allowed us to eat some really well cooked (internally) and crunchy (externally) puffs. I do not claim that this is the best method to do it - nor that I am the first person with this idea. But if you do end up with runny frying batter, try this.

(1) Pour oil into a large wok-type vessel and let it heat up

(2) Take a serving spoon with wide base. Something like a soup ladle is perfect.

(3) Put a little oil in the cup and put in 1 - 1.5 spoons of batter.

(4) This is where it’s a little tricky. Dip the ladle in the oil and use a spatula to gently push oil into the cup.

(5) Do this until you see the edges turn light brown. Pull the ladle just above the surface of the oil. Insert a spoon into the cup and gently try to life the puff. Do not use force. If it resists, bathe it in oil a little longer.

(6) Once the base is cooked, it will yield to gentle pressure and a (almost) perfect puff will come off from the cup. Simply drop it into the oil, cook till golden brown.

(7) Drop the cooked puff on a cooling rack lined with absorbent paper. Voila!

There you go. One way to rescue watery batter.

Until next time - keep frying!