Wash the flattened rice thoroughly and drain the water.
Now sprinkle ½ cup of water and let it sit for 12 to 15 minutes.
After 12 minutes, nicely mash the poha coarsely with hands. Then add the yogurt and mix it well.
Now add the other ingredients - rice flour, salt, carrot, cilantro, green chili. Combine them all and, if required, add ½ tbsp of water and form the vada dough. If the batter has more water content, add the additional rice flour and form a not-so-dry dough.
Take a small gooseberry size vadai mixture and flatten it into small patties. You can shape as per your preference. As you can see in one of the pictures, I made small round balls/nuggets also. Shape them as per your preference.
Heat the oil for frying in a kadai. Drop a small piece of vadai batter into the oil. If the oil is hot, the batter will rise immediately and sizzle.
And slowly drop the poha patties in the oil. Let it fry for 30 to 45 seconds and slowly flip them. Fry until the vada turns golden brown. By this time, the sizzling sound will reduce as well. Drain the fried vadai on a kitchen towel. Depending upon your pan size, you can fry 3 to 4 in one batch. Similarly, fry the remaining vada.
Serve them warm with chutney or ketchup.
Notes
Adjust the green chilies and salt according to your taste preference. You can use white poha as well.
Do not soak the poha. Wash and sprinkle water. Let it sit for 12 minutes and at the maximum 15 minutes but not more than that.
Except for chivda, I always prefer thick poha variety for all the other recipes. So I haven't tested this recipe with thin poha variety. If using thin poha, be cautious while adding the water.
If the vada batter has more moisture, it will absorb more oil so add rice flour.
I did not add any onion as I made it for a festival. But you can add 1 tbsp of finely chopped onion and also other veggies like cabbage, cauliflower.