Wash the lentils well and soak them together for one to two hours. It is usually sufficient to soak it for an hour.

Drain the lentils in a colander after the soaking time and let them drain for a few minutes. I usually soak the lentils and then in an hour or so drain them in the colander and let them sit there until ready to grind.

Transfer the drained dal to the blender or food processor jar and grind it along with green chilies, red chilies, asafoetida, and salt. Add very little water when grinding. Also, make sure to grind the lentils coarse. I also keep a few whole lentils aside before grinding to add them to the batter.

Add the curry leaves to the vada batter and mix well.

In the meantime, heat oil to deep fry the aama vadai.

Once the oil is hot, add a small piece of vada batter to the oil to check if it is hot enough. The batter should rise up and slowly start crisping up. If the oil is too hot, then the vada will brown outside too quickly whereas the interior will still be uncooked. So the temperature of the oil is very important to make crispy aama vadai.

Take a small lemon size batter and slightly flatten it in your palm. Slowly slide the shaped paruppu vadai into the hot oil. Depending on the size of the frying pan, add a few more vadai into the oil without crowding.

Using a slotted spoon, flip the vadai and cook on both sides until golden brown.

Remove the cooked vadai and drain it in a paper towel-lined bowl.

Serve warm.