Dosa Corner

Long back, I had promised my cousin to post few breakfast recipes, but I kept on forgetting about it. So now on, once in a while I would post few of the dosa recipes that I tried in last few days.

These dosa recipe collection is from a Kannada weekly (2004). They had the article about 62 different dosas. I tried most of them and absolutely loved them.

This is my entry to Nandita’s ‘A twist in the plate‘ event.

PS: I have been getting a lot of recipe requests. But since I am extremely busy these days, my response would be a bit slow. Please bear with me.

Ingredients:
Wheat sooji(wheat rava) 1 cup
Corn sooji 1 cup
Rice rava(idli rava) 1/2 cup
Thick yogurt(curd) 1 cup
Butter 2-3tea spns
Salt

I didn’t use corn sooji (have no idea what is it). Instead I used corn flour 1/2 cup.
For stuffing:
Sprouted moong 2 cups
Onion(chopped finely) 1/2 cup
Soya sauce 2 tea spns
Chili sauce 2 tea spn
Oil
Salt

Method:
Heat oil and fry onions till they turn brownish. Add sprouted moong, soya and chili sauce. Add salt and fry for around 5-6mins.
Mix the 3 types of sooji with yogurt, salt and leave for 3-4hrs.
Heat tava and spread small dosas. Keep 1 tbl spn of stuffing and fold tightly as shown in the picture. If required, cut it into small rounds.

Serves : 3-4
Preparation time : 20mins

Recently I have got so many new frinds, thanks to aayisrecipes. Daily I get so many encouraging mails. I even came to know about some people from my very own village through this site!!!. Last week I received Teppal(Sichuan pepper) from Deepa (she came to know I was searching for teppal from one of my post and sent it to me by post). Isn’t it great??

You must be wondering, why am I writing all these here? Few days back, I got a mail from Manoj. He gave me names of few very famous South Kanara dishes. He even promised me to find out the recipes, so that I can post them here. Then he sent me the recipes of most of them. This delicious dish was one among them. I tried this yesterday (I had pathetically failed with all my cooking experiments, except this one!!!). It tasted great. Do try it out.

‘Sanna’ means ‘Small’, the name comes from the size of these dosas. Usually three small dosas are made on a tava at a time. Its a well known dish in South Kanara(Mangalore, udupi, manipal and places around them) Konkani houses. From Manoj’s mail, I came to know, it is served as a side dish with rice and daali thoy. But since I do not prefer dosas with lunch/dinner, I prepared them for breakfast. The taste was on my mouth for the entire day yesterday!!!.

Ingredients:
Dosa rice 3/4 cup
Toor dal 3/4 cup
Roasted Dry Red chillies 4-6
Small onions (Chopped finely) 2
Cabbage (Chopped finely) 1/2 cup
Tamarind extract 1 tea spn
Coconut 1 cup
Hing (Asfoetida) A pinch
Oil
Salt

Method:
Soak rice and dal seperately for about an hr each and drain. Set aside.
Blend together the coconut, red chillies and tamarind to a fine paste.
Add the toor dal and blend again to get a smooth paste, adding very little water when blending.
Add the hing, salt and drained rice and blend again to get a smmoth-coarse consistency.
To this blended mixture, add the chopped cabbage and onions. Mix well.
Heat the tava, applying a little oil. Pour small dosas (can put three dosas at a time on the normal size tava). Fry on both side till they tun brownish.
Serve hot. (I served this with honey as these dosas are little spicy).

Serves: 3
Preparation time : 20min

This is one more Konkani special. Jaggery is called ‘GoD’ in Konkani. Its called as ‘Gandarli’ in North Kanara Konkani and ‘surnali’ in South Kanara Konkani. This is usually prepared with colored cucumber(magge, if someone knows the exact english name, pls let me know). I used water melon for this. Even the normal green cucumber can be used.Usually this and the normal cucumber dosa are prepared together for breakfast. Hinga(asafoetida) chutney is prepared along with this. Infact the color of this dosa same as that of ‘jaggery’. Since I used watermelon, I got the watermelon color to the dosa.

Ingredients:
Rice 1 cup
Coconut 1/2 cup
Avalakki (Poha/phovu) 1/4 cup
Jaggery 3/4 cup
Turmeric a pinch
Cucumber(magge/taushe) 1 cup
Salt

Method:
Soak rice in water for 1-2 hrs. Soak poha for 10-15min.
Grind all the ingredients adding little water. Keep overnight.
Make dosas (like uttappa, this dosa is thicker than normal dosa).
Serve hot with chutney.

Serves : 2
Preparation time : 15min

This is one of the favourite breakfasts at my home. My colleague and friend Poornima brought this often for lunch(yes..she likes dosas, idlis in lunch box than rice). She always brought 2-3 extra so that we all could eat it. She knew so many good recipes that every time I used to wonder how many more she might know. Her dishes are always perfect(unlike mine, most of the time they come out bad).

Let me tell something about Poornima. She has a wonderful kid. We always talk about her kid Vai, who does not like to eat anything. Vai is in pre-nursery now and from morning to evening she sits hungry in the school. One day Poo said her daughter has improved a bit (that day Vai had two grapes for lunch…hahaha). I could not control my laugh!!!. Poo is worried a lot because she thinks Vai might become like me when she grows up if she continues her food habits. (I love cooking but don’t like eating much!!!).

I always wonder how Poo manages to cook for more than 10 people(she stays in joint family) early morning and still manages to catch office van by 8AM. She is amaging. I dont know what I would have done if I was in her place.

Okay…now I think it is better to give recipe rather than boring everybody with my stories….

For Bhaji
Ingredients:
Onion 2
Potatoes 3
Green chillies 3
Mustard 1/2 tea spn
Chana dal 1/2 tea spn
Turmeric a pinch
Curry leaves 1 strand
Coriander leaves 5-6 strands
Oil 1 tea spn
Salt

Method:
Cook potatoes with a pinch of turmeric in pressure cooker or microwave. Peel and mash them with hand.
Heat oil and add mustard seeds. When they start spluttering, add chana dal, curry leaves and green chillies. Fry for a while. Then add chopped onion and fry till they are transparent. Now add potatoes and salt. Add a half cup of water. Cook for 2 minutes(till the water gets absorbed) and remove from flame. Garnish with coriander leaves.

For Red chutney:
Ingredients:
Red chillies 7
Garlic 5 small cloves
Salt 1/4 tea spn

Method:
Soak chillies in 1/2 cup hot water and close the lid of the vessel). Keep for around 1/2 to one hour so that chillies become soft. Then grind them with garlic and salt to a smooth paste(do not add extra water).

Method for making masala dosa:
Spread dosa with the batter explained here. Take one spoon of chutney and apply on dosa(Chutney has to be applied on whole dosa, I have applied in only half side because I cannot eat too spicy). Take one table spoon of bhaji and keep in in one half of dosa and fold dosa.
Serve hot with coriander chutney.

Serves : 4
Preparation time : 30min

This is a traditional recipe. I got it from my cousin Usha. These days we share a lot of recipes while chatting. She has got tremendous interest in cooking.I am getting a feel that here in US there are lot of people like me who love cooking. When I was in Bangalore, my colleagues hardly used to get any time for cooking. It may be because there the working hours(I mean working and traveling hours!!) were usually morning 8 to evening 8 and sometimes people used to work even after that.

So when last time Usha said she had invited a family for lunch and she prepared around 8-10 dishes, I was very surprised. Even I love doing that, but hardly got any such opportunities. In Bangalore I was too busy and used to feel exhausted due to heavy work and here, there is nobody whom we can invite. We know very few people here.

Here is the delicious recipe for methi dosa.

Ingredients:
3 cups rice
1/2 cup urad dal
1/2 tea spn fenugreek seeds
1/2 tea spn baking soda
1 tea spn sugar
Oil/ghee
Salt

Method:
Soak rice, urad dal and fenugreek seeds for 3 – 4 hours. Grind it together to make the batter. Add sugar, soda towards the end of the day & keep overnight for fermentation.
Make dosas in the morning applying oil/ghee.
Serve hot with ginger chutney.

Serves : 5
Preparation time : 15min

I guess this is a Andhra dish, its called Pesarattu(I got it from a Tamil friend). I got this in some book. Tried it and it came out very nice. I prefer this with tomato chutney.

Ingredients:
Rice 1 cup
Moong daal 1 cup
Onion 1 large
Ginger 2” piece
Green chillies 2-3
Coriander leaves 2-3 strands
Cumin seeds (Jeera) 1 tea spn

Method:
Soak rice and moong daal overnight. Grind with ginger, chillies, coriander leaves and salt. Add finely chopped onion and jeera.
Make dosa. Serve hot with tomato chutney.

Serves : 5
Preparation time : 10min

My friends used to tease me saying give anything to Shilpa & she will make dosa out of it ;). So I thought twice before even trying this, bcos I did not want them to laugh on me. But this came out well. I saw this in some TV show & modified a little.

Ingredients:
Bread slices 4
Rice flour 1 cup
Sooji(Rava) 1/2 cup
Curd 1 cup
Chilli powder 1/2 tea spn
Mustard seeds 1/2 tea spn
Urad daal 1/2 tea spn
Curry leaves 3-4
Ginger cut into small pieces 1/2 tea spn
Onion 1
Salt
Oil
Method:
Soak bread in water & squeze out the water. Grind wirh rice flour, sooji, curd and salt. Add chilli powder to this batter. Add enough water to help in grinding.
Heat half tea spn oil and fry mustard seeds, urad daal, curry leaves, ginger. Add finely chopped onion and fry till onions turn slightly brownish. Add this to the above batter.
Add sufficient water to bring it to dosa consistency. Make dosa. (Dosa should be fried till it becomes brownish from both sides).
Serve hot with coconut chutney.

Serves : 2
Preparation time : 30min

Ingredients:
Dosa rice 2 cups
Maida 1 cup
Wheat sooji 1 cup
Onion 1
Ginger 1 inch piece
Green chillies 2-3
Salt
Oil

Method:
Soak rice for around one hour. Grind with salt. Keep this batter for around 5-6hours. Add maida and sooji. Add finely chopped onion, ginger and chillies. Add sufficient water and make dosas. Serve with coconut chutney.

Serves : 4
Preparation time : 15min