Crisp, tasty and spiced vadas made with fresh jowar grains. Fresh jowar grains are known as 'ponk' in Gujarati language and 'hurda' in marathi language. Jowar is called as sorghum in english language.
Rinse 2 cups fresh tender jowar or ponk in water a couple of times in a pan or colander. Drain all the water.
Then add the ponk in a grinder jar. Also add 1 green chili (chopped), 3 to 4 medium garlic cloves (chopped), 1 inch ginger, (chopped) and 2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves.
Add 1 teaspoon cumin seeds and 1 teaspoon coriander seeds.
Grind to a coarse paste or a semi-fine paste. Do not add any water while grinding.
making ponk vada mixture
Take the ponk paste in a mixing bowl or pan and add ⅓ cup chopped onions.
Then add ½ cup besan (gram flour), 1 pinch turmeric powder, 1 pinch red chili powder and 1 tablespoon white sesame seeds. Also add salt as required.
Mix very well.
frying ponk vada
Heat oil for deep frying in a heavy pan or heavy kadai. Take a tiny portion of the mixture and add in hot oil. If it comes up steadily and gradually on top, the oil is ready to be fried.
Take a small to medium sized portion of the mixture and flatten it into a vada shape. If you cannot flatten mixture into vada, then you can even drop mixture with a spoon and fry like a pakoda or bhajiya.
Gently place or slide the vada in the hot oil. Add as required depending on the size of kadai.
Fry on medium-low to medium flame. These vadas fry fast, so keep a check. The vada which have been added before will turn golden before adding more vadas. So turn them once they turn golden.
Turn over again and continue to fry till they are crisp and golden. You can turn each vada a couple of times before frying.
Remove the fried vada with a slotted spoon
Place them on kitchen paper towels for extra oil to be absorbed. In the same way fry remaining vada.
Serve ponk vada hot with any chutney or sauce or dip of your choice.