Wash and soak the rice along with red chilis in water for 2 hours. Soaking red chilis will make it soft and eases the grinding process.

Wash and soak the urad dal, toor dal and chana dal separately.

After 2 hours, drain the water.

Grind the rice and chili together into a smooth paste. You can add little water while grinding.

Transfer it to a bowl.

Grind urad dal into a smooth paste. Add little water while grinding. Adding more water will end up absorbing more oil while frying.

Transfer this to the bowl.

Take 3 tbsp of soaked chana dal to the bowl. This gives a crunchiness while eating the vadas.

Grind the chana dal and toor dal into a coarse paste. Just give 2-3 pulses in the mixie.

Transfer to the bowl.

Now add 2 finely chopped green chili and curry leaves to the batter.

The spiciness was medium and was not too spicy. You can go ahead and add a few more red chilies if you want to make it spicy.

Add salt and mix the batter well.

If you want to add onions, you can add finely chopped onions at this stage.

Traditionally onions are not added.

The batter is ready. You can heat oil for deep frying.

Take a small portion of batter in a spoon and carefully drop in hot oil.

Fry in batches.

Fry the kara vadais in medium flame.

You can store the leftover batter in the refrigerator and use it up the next day.

Once it is cooked on both sides, take out from the oil and drain the excess oil in a kitchen towel.