Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Masala Dosa - A Love Affair

Welcome 2010....bring some blessings with you..this is my husband's latest Skype Profile message. So true....We all need blessings of good health, wealth, prosperity, etc..all the more than the last decade, as we start yet an era of this new decade. most of all we need God's grace to go through each single day and live it with full diligence and dedication - remembering not to take anything for granted but to acknowledge God's provision and protection and giving HIM all the Praise and not ceasing from Praying. Wooow!!! being a pastor's wife at times I tend to preach too..

I was on a break for the last few weeks from my regular once a week post bloging..Christmas and the New year fever is down and life is busy catching up with work and other regular activities...not to forget food bloging in its pace. After two weeks I may take a longer break..as I have to be accupied with something more exciting and important coming up in my life..but will soon be back as I have lots of pictures in my drafts waiting to be published.


DSC05008 Coming to the love affair "Masala Dosa"..I call it so because
'Masala Dosa" has incredible childhood memories of visiting restaurants with family and enjoying a breakfast or a dinner. In those days families were more used to home cooking. So going to a restaurant was a definte treat. And mostly we would visit restaurants to have tiffins. Though there are a variety of tiffins available, no trip to restaurant is complete without ordering the king of tiffins 'Masala Dosa'. Somehow we South Indians just love the smell and taste of this Masala Dosa. The name Masala Dosa comes from stuffing the plain dosa or accompaning it with a blissful Potato Masala. A typical Malasa Dosa thali consists of a thin dosa stuffed potato curry, sambar and an array of chutneys like coconut, coriander, mint, ginger, onion etc..

The taste of Masala Dosa with potato curry, sambar and coconut chutney that I had in my childhood is still fresh and the longing to have similar one in this part of the world is still unfullfilled. As years passed by the authentic taste also is diminishing. Often in our households(back home) we make dosa and have it with chutney, sometimes we are blessed to have sambar too. Very rarely we have the combo of three, Potato curry, sambar and chutney. So Masala Dosa had become a restraurant fair for me.

DSC05011 Mostly the Dosa recipe is the regular mix of Urad Dhal and Rice in 1 : 2 or 1: 3 or 1 : 4 of depending on whether you want the dosa to be soft or crispy or paper thin crispy. The urge to get a restraurant style Masala dosa made me try a different recipe for Dosa this time. More over, couple of months back I saw a Masala Dosa post in Usha Nandini's blog which really duplicated the restraurant style Paper Masala Dosa, by adding Rice flour, Maida and channa dhall to the regular Urad Dhall mixture. I was excited when my dosas turned out to be Saravana Bhavan and Udipi style.

DSC05026 Recipe for Dosa:
Ingredients :
1 1/2 cup Rice flour
1/2 Cup Maida
3/4 cup Urad Dhal
1/4 cup Channa Dhall
1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
1/4 tsp Bi-Carbonate
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp Sugar
Enough oil to fry the Dosas
DSC05028 Method :Soak Channa and urad dal + fenu greek seeds separately in water 3-4 hrs.
Grind them together into very fine smooth paste adding enough water.
In a steel bowl ideal for fermenting the batter, add rice flour, maida, soda, sugar and enough water to make a smooth batter with any lumps.
To this batter add both dal pastes and enough salt to form dosa consistency batter.
Let the dosa batter ferment and raise overnight.
Once the Dosa batter is fermented and its time to make dosas, mix thoroughly to level the raised batter and add more salt and water if required to obtain the consistency which is right to get thin dosa(if preferred)
Heat a non-stick pan or tawa on high, spread oil to cover the whole pan.
When the pan really hot, pour a ladle full of dosa batter on it and spread with the bottom of ladle in spiral motion to form a circular and thin dosa.
When the bottom side of dosa gets golden brown, turn on other side for few more seconds.
In restraurants they usyally do not turn the dosa on the other side. The thick hot wide tawa they use helps in cooking the upper side of the dosa too, so once the bottom is golden brown they add a laddle of spicy Potato masala in the centre and roll the dosa to serve it with hot sambar and chutney.
DSC05014 Will publish receipes for Potato Masala, Sambar, and green chutney as a seperate posts coming up.

Happy cooking & blogging to all my blog friends in 2010 !!!

Cheers
Rina

24 comments:

Cynthia said...

I'm whispering... perfection!

Ambika said...

Wow, the dosas look perfectly golden and crispy!! The maida in dosa recipe is a new addition, will try that sometime...

Nandinis food said...

Wow! The dosa came out fantastic! The fenugreek seeds must be giving it a nice color! Marvelous!

notyet100 said...

YUMMY PLATTER WISH U HAPPY NEW YR 2010,.

Finla said...

Wow tha tmasala dosa looks so so perfect. My mom used to make them onsundays as we kids could enjoy the breakfast as we didn't had to rushoff to school.

FH said...

Happy new year to you and your's Rina. Dosa looks perfect. My mother adds similar ingredients too, I will make that later to post. Golden dosas are perfect and crispy. great post! :)

Rina said...

Thank you all..dear girls..

Mona said...

Perfect dosas Rina! they look yumm!
zaiqa.net

Vikis Kitchen said...

Masal dosa has come out perfect dear.Love the title too. I admire the message you have given for this decade. True to the core . We all need this kind of reminders every now and then. Thanks for this inspiring message dear. Hugs, Viki.

Rina said...

Thanks Mona..

Viki dear..thanks for your admiration..Hugs ..Rina

Vikis Kitchen said...

I would like to share an award with you dear. Please accept it. Thanks.

my kitchen said...

Wow Dosa looks crispy & Tempting, Grab from screen & taste it now itself

Shella said...

Reena wishing you and the family a Happy New Year. I am blogging once again, and look forward to a lot of posts. I love the crispy golden dosa.. I just wanna dig in right away.

Rina said...

Viki dear..thanks for the award..

My kitchen..go ahead !!!

Shella dear..so nice to hear from you..will definetly check ur posts..happy new year to you..

Malar Gandhi said...

Oh man, thats so beautiful, just like the way we get in the restaurant'...lovly masala dosa, looks crispy and inviting:)

Ann said...

Rina, I stumbled across your blog one day when Iw as hunting for some recipe. I can't believe I had not found your blog sooner. What a lovely collection of recipes!! I recently just elarnt how to make dosas, but these ones really take the cake! I have to try your recipe. I was convinced that making dosa with rice flour would not turn out good, but your pics speak otherwise. looking forward to learning from your blog!

Rina said...

Welcome to my blog Ann..and thanx a ton for ur lovely comments..

Selvi said...

Hi Rina,
I was just looking for a recipe like this.I just have one question can we grind all the dhals in the grinder and mix it with rice flour or do we need to grind it in mixie.Pls if u could clear this it will be very useful.

Rina said...

Hi Selvi..

Sorry for delay in replying..Actually we can grind all the dhalls together and then add rice flour to ferment..It was a typo saying seperately grind the dhalls in my post..which I have updated now..

Hope I answered u..

Rina said...

Selvi..either way is ok..mixer grinder also works good..since we don't have to grind rice ..its easier to finish the job in a mixer..

Unknown said...

Hi Rina

You know in Dubai they also sell this batter in supermarkets and sell them with a three day expiry, how would they be doing that?Do they addanything special to the batter for the storage coz they could be used for 4 to 5 days.

Rina said...

Shibbs, thanx for visiting. Actually the salt we add acts as a perservative for this batter. And yes if refrigerated can store upto 4 to 5 days.

Unknown said...

Does it matter which rice we use for the dosa batter. Is it better to use idly rice or basmati rice is fine?

Renuka said...

Hi Rina,
I made this the other day and they turned out fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing such a wonderful recipe.