Minty Chickpeas Vada / Mint Chickpeas Vadai / Chickpea Vadai

For the last day of BM #16, I am going to share a super yummy n healthy snack, Chickpea vada or Kondakadalai vadai recipe with my Star Ingredient - Chickpeas/Channa. First I wanted to make oven roasted chickpeas for snack then changed my mind & tried this crispy Chickpea vada with mint flavor. To make it healthy and filling, I added some finely chopped Spinach, Purple Cabbage and Carrots. And this vadai is fully made with chickpeas n I did not add split yellow peas/chana dal like my Green Peas Cabbage Vada. It came out beyond to my expectation and we all enjoyed, yes...after a very very long time I made deep fried snack at home. My kids n V loved this vada a lot. As they were so much tempted with the color, flavor started eating the fried vadas hot and I was left with only some 5 vadas for the pictures. 

I was completely blank & dunno how to present them. Have seen food bloggers present their cookies/snack bars with wax papers. Then without other options I tried doing it on my own, as the vadas were not flat one i couldn't stack them. Really thanks to those creative minds which helped me this time to present my recipe :)

Before to the recipe, Here's recap of this week's recipe Under the them "Pick One Cook All" with my Star Ingredient Chickpeas.
Starter  -   Chickpeas Tikkis
Main Course 1-   Coconut Milk Chickpeas Biryani
Main Course 2 -  Curried Chickpeas Masala Dosa
Soup -  Mixed Veg n Chickpeas Clear Soup
Salad -  Cilantro Lime Chickpeas Salad
Sweet - Poornam Boorelu with Chickpeas
Snack - Minty Chickpeas Vada

Ingredients
To Wet Grind

1. Overnight soaked Chickpeas    2 cups
2. Mint leaves    1 sprig
3. Fennel seeds    1tsp
4. Green chilli or Red chilli     2-3 no.s
5. Garlic    1clove

Other Ingredients

1. Spinach    1/2 cup(finely chopped)
2. Carrot    3-4 tbsp (finely chopped)
3. Purple Cabbage    1/2 cup(finely chopped)
4. Ginger     2 tsp(finely chopped)
5. Mint leaves    2-3 tbsp(finely chopped)
6. Salt    to taste
7. Oil    for deep frying

Method

• Soak Chickpeas overnight or 6-8 hours and then drain completely, and grind with other ingredients under the heading "To Wet Grind" to a coarse paste. Sprinkle very little water while grinding. 
• After grinding transfer the ground chickpeas mixture to a bowl, and add salt, spinach, carrot, cabbage, ginger, mint leaves and combine everything well.

• Then divide the mixture in to 15 small lemon sized balls n keep ready.
• Heat oil in a kadai for deep frying, when oil get really hot, take one ball, press between your palms lightly and drop it in the hot oil. First fry only one vada, then check for salt n spices...add according, mix well then proceed with all the mixture.

• Do repeat the same procedure for the remaining chickpeas mixture, fry 4-5 vada at a time (based on your kadai/pan size)in medium high heat. Turn the vada other side after 2-3 minutes and fry other side till it turns crisp and nice brown color. 
• Once done, remove from the oil and drain it in paper towel. 
• That's it...Yummy Minty Chickpeas Vada ready. Serve Hot/Warm with a cup of chai/coffee. 

Notes:
You can make Minty Masala Vada using the same recipe n procedure, instead chickpeas use yellow split peas or channa dal...soak the dal for 2 hours n proceed the same.
Instead of chopped carrots , can add shredded carrots/beets.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 16.