To a mixing bowl, add
1 cup rice flour
½ cup fine semolina
½ cup organic all-purpose flour

Add 1 cup thinly sliced and halved onions. Slice the onions evenly thin and then halve the slices so you get the size like mine in the pictures. Don’t use very long slices of onions.

To the same bowl, add
¼ cup chopped curry leaves – about 3 to 4 sprigs
1½ tablespoons fine chopped ginger
2 to 3 green chilies fine chopped (adjust to taste)
1 teaspoon salt (adjust to taste)

Mix all of these squeezing the onions to release any moisture in them.

. Heat 2½ tablespoons oil in a kadai and pour it over the ingredients. The oil has to be very hot so it sizzles when you add it here.

Add ½ teaspoon red chilli powder and 1½ tablespoons sesame seeds (optional). Use a spoon and mix all of these. Since the oil is hot avoid keeping your hand.

Pour oil to a kadai and begin to heat it on a medium flame. I used about 2 cups oil, you can use lesser too depending on the size of your kadai.

Meanwhile make the dough. Pour ¼ cup water and begin to mix to form a non sticky dough. Add more water as required little by little and mix. I used ½ cup plus 2 to 3 tablespoons water in total.

This is how mine looked after mixing.

Grease a parchment paper or use a moist cloth. Spread it well. Grease your fingers as well. Divide the dough to 15 to 16 equal portions. Roll them to balls. Keep them covered so they don’t dry up

Flatten 2 to 3 of them and begin to spread. Keep the edges thinner than the center. This gives the crisp texture on the outside and soft center inside the vadas. Maddur vada has to be slightly thick and not very very thin like nippattu/ chekkalu/thattai. A typical maddur vada has cracked edges so it is normal for the edges to crack.

Test if the oil is hot by gently dropping a small portion of dough. If the oil is right, the dough sizzles and rises to the surface without turning brown.

Keep the flame to medium and gently slide the maddur vadas to hot oil.

You can fry about 2 to 3 in one batch depending on the size of your kadai. When the onions begin to turn golden, turn them to the other side with a perforated ladle and fry on a medium flame.

You have to be careful during the last few minutes as the onions can quickly burn and become bitter. So the last 1 to 2 minutes, regulate the flame to medium to low and fry. Remove them to a colander when they become golden.
Shape the rest of the vadas while the other batch gets fried. Once removed from oil, they will take about 3 to 4 minutes to cool down and get the right texture. If you feel they are soft it means they need to be fried a little longer, fry them again on a low heat.