Green Gram and Fenugreek Dosa

Dosas are a staple of south Indian cuisine. As much as paneer butter masala and chicken tikka are synonymous with Indian food for the western world, India has as many types of cuinines as we have states.

India is a sort of Europe, if you will. We are made of several states, each with their own cuisine, language, culture and clothing. Just like Europe is made of several countries, each with their own language, and culture. India is an amalgamation of all these states. Some cuisines and languages are just more well-known than others.

South India is made of four states and the one I live in is Tamil Nadu. The food here consists of fermented rice flours and mostly curries that have very mild spices. Of course even in Tamil Nadu, there are several kinds of food. We have many, almost a dozen sub-cultures, and they each have their own cuisines! Its quite wonderful, in a way. For example, food from different cities might be different, within the same state!

Dosas are pretty predominant across Tamil Nadu. Different people make it differently. There are so many many variations of this. I have made several variations myself in this blog. Well, you can imagine my delight when I came across this book: Dosai by Chandra Padmanabhan. She is one of my favorite south Indian cookbook authors. Every recipe of hers is a keeper! This book is so amazing. Here's a lovely recipe from the book.

 

Paithum Paruppu and Vendayam Dosai 
(Green Gram and Fenugreek Dosa)
(recipe from Dosai by Chandra Padmanabhan)

Makes 10-12 dosais

1/4 cup husked green gram (mung dal)
2 tsp Fenugreek Seeds
1 cup Parboiled Rice
1 1/4 tsp Salt
1 tsp Cumin Seeds
3-4 Green Chillies, seeded and finely chopped
2 tbsp Coriander Leaves, finely chopped
1 Onion, finely chopped
5-6 Curry Leaves
Oil, as needed

Combine the dal and the fenugreek seeds. Wash well and soak in water for a couple of hours. Separately, wash the rice and soak for a couple of hours.

Drain and grind the dal, till light and fluffy, adding 1/2-3/4 cup water.

Drain the rice and grind to a smooth batter with 1-1 3/4 cups water.

Combine both the batters and add the salt and mix well. Set aside and allow to ferment for 4 hours.

When ready to make the dosas, add the cumin seeds, green chillies, coriander leaves, onion and curry leaves. Adjust the consistency by adding some water to make the batter of pouring consistency.

Prepare a tawa or flat top pan. To Prepare: Smear a thin layer of oil evenly on a tawa or griddle pan using a halved potato, or onion dipped in oil. Heat the tawa. When you sprinkle a few drops of water on it, it should sizzle.
With a clean wet cloth, wipe the tawa to remove excess oil. Lower heat and the tawa is now ready for cooking the dosai.

How to cook the dosai:
Pour a ladle of batter into the center of the tawa or griddle pan. Spread quickly using a circular motion with the back of the ladle to form a 6" round dosai.
Drizzle 1 tsp oil around the edges.
Raise heat and cook for 1-2 minutes, till the base is golden brown.
Turn over carefully and fry the other side, till crisp and golden. Remove from heat.
Wipe the tawa with a wet cloth after making each dosai so that it does not get over-heated.
Oil the tawa again if it becomes too dry.

Repeat for the remaining batter.

Serve hot with a chutney, podi and/or sambar.

Other dosais in this blog: Dosai, Peas Dosai,  Neer Dosai, Tomato Dosai, Pesarat, Adai, Vegetable Adai, Akki Roti and Ilai Vadam.

Peas Dosa

Dosas are very popular breakfast/ lunch/ anytime foods in southern India. Over the years, just as with any other popular food, the dosa has been changed to use several other ingredients including vegetables and different types of grains such as oats or ragi. Here, I've made a peas dosa. This is really easy since it doesn't require fermentation. Enjoy!


Peas Dosa

2 cups Rice, soaked for 3 hours
2 cups grated Coconut
4 Green Chillies
Salt, to taste
2 cups Peas, cooked

Grind together the coconut, green chillies and rice to a smooth batter with water. Add the salt and peas. Mix to combine. Make thick crepes on a heated crepe pan.


Other dosas on this blog: Dosa, Neer Dosa, Tomato Dosa and Pesarat.

Adai

Adai is a form of south Indian crepe, sort of like a dosa, but made with a larger proportion of lentils, and hence far healthier than dosas. Dosas also need to ferment, while adais can be made as soon as the batter is mixed together.


Adai

2 cup Raw Rice
1 cup Channa Dal (split Chick Peas)
1 cup Urad Dal (split Black Gram)
1 cup Toor Dal (Pigeon Peas)
6 Dried Red Chillies

Salt, to taste
Chilli Powder, to taste
A pinch of Asoefetida
2-3 Curry Leaves, chopped fine

Soak the rice, dals and red chillies for 4-5 hours. Drain the water from the soaking mixture, and grind to a coarse texture.


Add the salt, chilli powder, asoefetida and curry leaves to the batter.

Heat a flat pan (such as a dosa pan or an omelette pan). When hot, spread a ladle-ful of the batter onto the pan in a circular motion.


When one side is golden brown, flip over carefully and let cook for a further two minutes.


Serve warm with chutney or jaggery/ palm sugar/ brown sugar.

Dosai

Sundays are sacred to most people. Its always the day for relaxation and getting re-energized for the upcoming week. And a way for the family to spend time together, away from busy lives. For us, when I was growing up, Sunday's food was always the same. And something we always could count on and look forward to.

For breakfast we always (and when I say always I mean for 40+ years now) had dosas and shallot sambar, with chutney and milagai podi. For lunch it was spicy potatoes, rasam, any left over sambar (from breakfast), a veggie (most often carrots and peas), and rice. It's incredible that even now sunday breakfast and lunch is sacred to me, and something I look forward to.


Dosai

2 cups Rice
3/4 cup Urad Dal
1 tsp Fenugreek Seed
1 1/2 tbsp Salt

Soak the rice in a bowl and the urad dal and fenugreek in another bowl, in water for 2 hours. Drain well and wash completely.

Grind the soaked urad dal and fenugreek with a little bit of water to a smooth consistency. Keep aside. Grind the rice now, with a little of water, to a smooth consistency. Keep aside.

Mix the two together and add salt. Stir to incorporate the salt. Cover and keep in a warm area of the house for about 8 hours or overnight. If not using right away, the batter can be kept in a closed container in the refrigerator for a week.

Heat a crepe pan (cast-iron works best; the heavier the better - but I've made it on a non-stick $2 flimsy pan and it worked fine :-) ). Make sure the pan gets very hot (test it by dropping a little water, if it sizzles at once, the pan is ready).

Pour about a 3/4 cup amount of dough onto the center of the pan, using a soup ladle (the ladles work really well for me), and very quickly spread the batter using the back of the ladle and a gently touch so that it starts to resemble a circular shape. Here's a video from a road-side dosai-making chap! And here's a picture:


When the bottom is browned, flip the dosai over and brown the other side.


Fold in two or three (letter style) and serve with sambar, chutney and milagai podi. This is a quintessential south Indian breakfast.


Dosais can be had either plain or with a filling of your choice - some people choose to break an egg onto the middle of the dosai (like the chap on the video), or you can fill it with spicy potatoes and make a masala dosai, or spread a thin layer of milagai podi on the inside of the dosai and have mysore dosai! It's going to be delicious regardless! :-) Now I can't wait for Sunday!


Here are some other popular types of dosais: Tomato Dosai, Neer Dosai and Pesarat.

This is off to Srivalli @ Cooking 4 All Seasons for her wildly popular Rice Mela.

Check out my fellow marathoners:
DK, Siri, Srivalli, Ranji, PJ, Curry Leaf, Medha, Priya, Bhawna, Raaji, Ruchii, Kamala, Roopa, Divya Kudua, Rekha, Divya, Lakshmi, Raaga, Lakshmi, Sripriya, Viji, Kamalika, Pavani, Karuna and Roochi.

Tomato Dosa

The color and the sweet taste of the tomato make this one beautiful dosa. Kids love them!

Tomato Dosa

1 1/4 cup Raw Rice
2 tbsp Toor Dal
2 Tomatoes
2-3 Red Chillies
1-2 tbsp Fenugreek Seeds
1 tbsp Cilantro, chopped
Salt, to taste

Soak the rice, toor dal and the red chillies for 3 hours.

Grind all the ingredients with water to a pouring consistency.


Heat a little oil (about a teaspoon) on a crepe pan/ flat saute pan. Pour the ground mixture and spread like you would a dosa/ crepe.


Flip over until both sides are cooked through.

Serve with a chutney or just eat it plain! :)


This is off to Susan at The Well-Seasoned Cook for the Pancakes on Parade event. I'm sure the round-up is going to have some amazing ideas! Thanks, Susan.

I'm also sending this to Srivalli as a very late addition to her Dosa Mela.

I want to thank DK and Siri for organizing the Recipe Marathon. It has really changed my outlook on blogging. I also managed to meet a bunch of really cool people! And I got an award too:


Thanks DK for a gorgeous award.

Pesarat

Pesarat is a dosa made of green gram lentils and is absolutely delicious and nutritious. I'm always looking for ways to make my favorite staples healthier and tastier, and this combines both. The green gram provides a big protein punch, which is so important to us vegetarians. And it adds a bit of a nutty texture to regular dosa, which, to me, makes it tastier as well.




1 cup Green Gram Whole lentils, soaked for 1 hour
3 Green chillies, chopped fine
2 Onions, chopped fine
1 Bunch Coriander leaves, chopped fine

Grind the lentils to a pancake dough-type consistency with a little water. Add the chopped green chillies, onions and coriander.

Spread like crepes on a heated pan. Turn over when slightly brown and cook the other side for a minute or two.

Serve with chutney.

This is my contribution to Srivalli @ Cooking 4 all Seasons's Dosa Mela