A recipe for instant gratification rava dosa
A dosa recipe for Doug who helped pull this recipe into existence!
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Instant gratification rava dosa
As Nik Sharma, the former molecular biologist now award winning cookbook author says, ‘[dosa] does require some planning and practice, I promise you will feel the same level of elation once you conquer it.’
His mother couldn't make them, my mother never did. When you live in Tooting, or Harrow, near where I grew up, it is far easier to go to a small South Indian/Sri Lankan cafe and order a dosa than spend hours attempting to surmount the recipe.
There are possibly over a hundred different types of dosa, made with grains, lentils or beans which require soaking, grinding, and like sourdough, a batter that needs fermenting in order to achieve its foamy texture.
Don’t be fooled by the ‘Easy to make dosa recipe’ you’ll find on well known recipe sites and in glossy food magazines. Making a dosa can be a daunting endeavour.
However, there is a dosa recipe that doesn’t require an infinite amount of patience and offers almost instant gratification.
A dosa that can be made easily when a dosa pang hits and you’re desperate for a dosa fix. It can be made plain and simple, or loaded up with onions, curry leaves and spices.
This recipe almost never made it out of my recipe file where it had lurked for almost four years.
Only when I received an email from Doug about his trip to Sri Lanka, a chance to explore his heritage, sample food from roadside cafes and stalls and memories of dosa batter humming away did I decide to pull this recipe into existence.
This rava dosa batter doesn’t hum. And when you soak the semolina and rice flour in the water, and see it sink to the bottom of the bowl, you’ll question whether this could make any sort of dosa. Yet when mixed and ladled into a hot flat pan in concentric circles working from the outside in, a sort of culinary magic happens and the semolina, rice flour and water coalesce into a dosa.
Gently ease that dosa out of the pan and eat. Instant gratification achieved!
Instant gratification rava dosa
Prep time 30 minutes
Cooking time 10 minutes per dosa
Serves 6
Ingredients
85g fine semolina
85g raw rice flour
30g plain flour
1 tbs Greek yoghurt
500 mls water
1 red onion finely chopped
1 dried red chilli crushed
5g of finely chopped ginger
1 garlic clove finely chopped,, or crushed and mashed
Leaves from a sprig of curry leaves
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp black mustard seeds
A pinch of fenugreek seeds
A pinch of salt
A few grinds of black pepper
6 tsp vegetable oil for frying
Method
Put the flours into a bowl with the yoghurt and water, beat into a smooth runny batter. Add the remaining ingredients and let the batter rest for 20 minutes.
A flat cast iron pan or tawa is best for this recipe.
Pour in a teaspoon oil on to the pan, and use a piece of folded kitchen roll to smear over the base of the pan. (Repeat this for each dosa.)
Heat the pan on a high heat, when oil in the pan just starts to smoke, turn down the heat. Quickly give the batter a quick, vigorous stir (the flour will have settled to the bottom). Take a large serving spoon or ladle and pour in the batter in a concentric circle from outside of the pan inwards. Add a little more batter to fill in any large gaps in your dosa.
Let the dosa cook for six minutes, using a silicone palette knife ease the edges away from the pan then with a slotted turner (a silicon one is best), gently lift the dosa. If the dosa breaks, let it cook for a couple of minutes more. It should come away easily from the pan, and flip. Cook for another three minutes.
Lift the dosa out of the pan on to a waiting plate and eat immediately, perhaps with a little sambol.
Some recipes are best kept in the experts kitchen, as much as I love Indian food, I don’t think I would attempt it. Perhaps next time I am out shopping I will check with our many Indian supermarkets as to whether there is something similar we could enjoy, or perhaps they may have some ready made. We have quite a large Indian community here, but like visiting an Asian food store, help is needed when purchasing products as they are so unfamiliar to us. Dosa isn’t something I have ever seen on the menu of any Indian Restaurant we have been to. Thank you for sharing, and I’m sure there will be some out there who will give your recipe a try. 🤗