Marriage and Ulundu Vadai

Marriage and Ulundu Vadai

Even as a husband who had savoured the spices of marriage through the culinary expertise of my wife for the last 45 years, Ulundu Vadai, a delicacy of south Indian cuisine, shaped like a British donut, never entered the long list of my wife's mouth watering menus until we both visited my daughter in UK.

Going through the recipes on the Internet, a favourite pastime after dropping the kids to school everyday, I stumbled upon this recipe of Ulundu Vadai made with urad dhal, eaten as a snack with creamy coconut chutney. Realising the simplicity in making this mouthwatering, crispy snack, I dashed to the Asian corner at ASDA and purchased a pack of urad dhal. The very next day we had this delicious snack for dinner.

The preparation of this snack needs the practice to form its hand made shape along with the perfection of the recipe. To my knowledge, although brits have donut makers Indians have not so far mechanized their vadai and rely on the expertise of their wives fingers in almost every type of food. In Asian cooking it is ingredients and expertise blended with love and caring that makes a perfect dish. With European cooking it is cans and packets thrown on to the table with a shout “ darling, breakfast is ready.”

Back in Sri Lanka with 2 sons who are eagerly waiting to pry on my liquor stock during weekends and 4 brats ranging from 6 to 22 roaming around demanding grandma's weekend dishes, Saturday nights are reserved for grannies dishes. With a few shots of whiskey sponsored by my son in law down our throats, fun time starts with slandering each other.  The first shot is blended with soda and gratitude towards my teetotaller son in law who once, could not refuse the company of fellow doctors in a reputed pub in London and innocently ordered Guinness oblivion to the effect of this strong dark stout of world fame. His friends assumed him to be a hard drinker and the rest of the night became unwritten history not to be touched upon.

The smell of urad dhal in the deep fryer started to tingle our taste buds already in full swing with the onslaught of Irish whiskey. In Sri Lanka when it comes to the testing of newly discovered menus, the males obviously become the guinea pigs. The first few vadai came to the table which took the shape of dog poop rather than its traditional shape of donuts. With all due respect to my wife's culinary talents that held me to her for the last four and a half decades the taste was perfect and fantastic. A little bit of trial and error saw the perfection of its shape and we all enjoyed a sumptuous South Indian dish.

A bit tipsy with whiskey my usually stagnant brain cells started to run riot. All hell broke loose when I announced in public that my wife's Ulundu vadai is just like our marriage. “ Perfectly spiced with no shape at the start” and she did not have the patience to wait till I finished my comment, “perfect at last.”