Arisi vadam rice vadagam recipe

       Easy arisi vadam or ilai vadam
This one of the simplest vadam and the quick and  easy vadam.  
Take one tumbler raw rice and soak in water for two to three hours .
 For one tumbler rice add one tea spoon sago or javvarisi and soak both together.
Wet grind in a mixer at night 
Add salt after grinding.

 The next day we can make  the vadam after  we ferment it for six to seven hours. So either we grind at night or if we grind in the morning we can make the vadam in the evening.

After 6 to 7 hours add ground green  chilly paste ( the quantity will depend upon how  hot we want the dish to be . Add asafoetida and one teaspoon white  sesame seeds.

Mix all the ingredients well so that we get a well mixed batter.

Elai vadam stands for making vadam are easily available in shops.  
Using a elai vadam stand, spread the batter on all the plates in the stand, the way we pour and spread  batter  for dosa using a ladle ( karandi )

Place the stand in an idli cooker and cook for four minutes.  We can use a pressure cooker also without the pressure cooker weight.

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After four minutes take out the stand with the cooked elai vadam and  using a butter knife  remove the vadam from the stand and place them on a plastic sheet.  The main reason why this vadam is easy is that it  does not need the hot sun that is an essential part of preparation of many other types of vadam. This can be dried under a ceiling fan, stored  in an  air tight container and fried in oil.   It is one  of the favourite side dishes of children particularly for sambar  rice or bisibela bath and curd rice too.

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Traditional arisi vadam or vadagam recipe
This is the traditional, authentic method of preparing arisi vadam or vadagam. 
The steps are 
Take some raw rice soak in luke warm water for half and hour, wash it and remove all water.
Spread the rice on a clean  white cloth and allow it to dry in shade under a ceiling fan. Spread it out on the cloth so that it dries quickly.  
Once the water has evaporated for one kilogram raw rice add quarter kilogram sago or javvarisi and dry grind in what we call "machine" .   The same flour can  be used to make  onion  vadam and other types of vadam.
(This is a shop with machinery exclusively for dry grind large quantities of rice and  other pulses. There is a separate machine for dry grinding turmeric to turmeric powder and  red chillies to red chilly powder.   This shop is quite popular in Tamil  Nadu and is crowded particularly during summer when vadam season is at the peak.  Actually some times we cannot get our ingredients ground immediately, either we have to wait or give it to the shop owner or operator and collect it after a few hours.)

Once the flour is ready, for one tumbler flour boil one tumbler water in a vessel.
Now mix water to the flour and dissolve it in water.  We can  also add the flour directly to the boiling  water.  The advantage of dissolving first is water is that the chances of the flour solidifying or some solid pieces remaining is eliminated.

To the boiling water , add one tea spoon oil .
Green chillies and salt are ground in a mixer and the liquid mixture is kept ready.
This is added to the boiling water.  The quantity of green chillies can  vary according to our taste.

Then  add the flour dissolved in water slowly and stir well.

Once the flour / batter is cooked the colour changes from white to an off white colour.  
The same batter can be used to make vengaya vadam by adding pieces of onion and placing the vadam by hand.

When  the batter is cooked and semi solid remove from the stove and allow it cool.

Using different acchhu as we call it we can make vadam of different shapes on the plastic sheet.

It is dried in the hot sun till  the evening.  If it is not dried completely the drying process is repeated the  next day.  When  the vadam are completely dry they are removed from the sheet, stored in a dry container and fried in oil whenever required ( and that is quite often because they are very tempting  as  side dish for bisibela bath or sambar rice or just as an evening snack for kids and adults  alike.

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 ( We remember that during our childhood vadam preparation  was during summer holidays ) and we were given the duty of protecting the drying vadam from birds.  We were  given a  long stick  to shoo away the birds ).  Of course we liked the half dried vadam that was partly hard  and partly soft and so we used to  eat  a few !