My elder sister and I only had couple hours to shop, cook and shoot this Ponk Vada. I was on my way home after a trip in pursuit of some ancient food traditions. A stop over at Surat to spend time with extended family was on charts. It is unacceptable to leave Surat without immersing one’s self in its seasonal bounty. Come winters and two foods we associate with Surat are its Undiyu and Ponk. Many of you inquired about what exactly Ponk is to my story Ponk Vada. Ponk are tender jowar/sorghum berries. The locals call it Andhani Vani. In Gujarat the best Ponk is cultivated within 20 kilometers radius of Surat and is only available for few weeks between December and January, when it is the most tender and naturally sweet. Usually Gujarati eat ponk with sev and sakaria (fennel filled sugar balls). Ponk Vada is a popular snack made with crushed fresh ponk and that is what we decided to make during the couple of hours we had to document one Surti recipe for the blog. The recipe is pretty simple and the ingredients list includes:
Soaked and coarsely ground Chana dal. Grind without water. The paste has tobe thick. Steamed, cooled and coarsely pulsed Ponk. The Dal to Ponk ratio is 1:1
Red onion, chopped, Ginger green chilli paste, fresh green garlic with its springs, very finely chopped, a generous handful of mint leaves and coriander leaves each, finely chopped. Coarsely pounded whole coriander seeds, 1/4th teaspoon turmeric
Lemon juice, Salt to taste. Mix all the ingredients well, drop petit vadas in hot oil and deep fry on gentle heat.
In the videos saved as highlights we have added spring onions and fruit salt (eno). We felt the spring onions needed to be replaced with red onion and eno could be avoided. This would result in crisper Vada.
