Rava Dosa ~ Instant breakfast

When I chose the theme Indian Breads for Blogging Marathon, I  had few different kind of rotis in my drafts to be posted. Later while I was checking the different varieties that fall under this category, I found dosas, pooris and bhaturas also fall under this. Though the first thing that comes to our mind is the roti. So here I am sharing one of my favorite dosa recipe. I mostly order Rava Dosa in restaurants when to comes to South Indian food. I never get bored of this. Rava dosa recipe is very simple. But spreading the batter to get crisp dosa is an art. There are many recipes with various ratios of rava, rice flour and maida. This is the recipe I have been following for many years. Initially my dosas would be very thick and not crisp. But with practise, I got it perfect. When it comes to rava dosa, you cannot compromise much on the usage of oil.

You need

•  Rava/Semolina - 1 cup
• Rice flour - 1 cup
• Maida /All purpose flour - 1/4 cup
• Salt

To season

• Oil - 1 tspn
• Jeera/Cumin seeds - 1 tspn
• Crushed pepper corn-1/2 tspn
• Green chilly - 2 nos, chopped
• Ginger - a small wedge, finely chopped.
• Curry leaves - 1 sprig

Method

Soak rava in water for around 45 minutes. Add water so that its 1/2 inch above the rava. On soaking, rava will absorb water. Meanwhile, heat oil in a ladle and do the seasoning.  Mix in maida, rice flour, salt and the seasonings to the soaked rava. Add water to make a loose batter. The batter should be slightly thicker than water. The batter consistency is very important to get crisp dosa.

  

Heat the dosa tawa. When it is very hot, use a katori/cup to spread the batter on the tawa. Pour the batter using the cup to the tawa in quick motion. Don't try to fill all the gaps. Few holes here and there is fine. Drizzle oil.

When the downside is cooked flip and cook the other side too till crisp.

Serve hot with coconut chutney

 

Notes:

Iron tawa gives better results than non-stick tawa

I usually use gingelly oil/nallenai for my dosa. With rava dosa, I find refined oil give more crispy dosas

The tawa should be very hot

Use a cup to pour the batter.  Hold your hand little above the tawa while you pour the batter. So when the batter falls on the hot tawa, small pores will be formed.

 

I'm sending this dosa to Breakfast Mela organised by Srivalli in celebration of her blog birthday.

Check out my Blogging Marathoners doing Group 3 BM#4 along with me

Diabetes Diet/Management: Kamalika, Smitha, Suma
Kid Friendly Recipes: Anusha, Cool Lassi(e)

Seven Days of Soup: Priya Suresh
Seven Days of Indian Bread: Jayasree, Pavani
Seven Days of Cakes:  Priya Vasu

Cabbage Dosa ~ No fermentation, spicy dosa

At first, cabbage in a dosa did not appeal to me. I have seen many blog posts featuring the cabbage dosa, a famous Konkani recipe. My husband's aunt Malathi is a great cook and she loves to cook and feed too. When she is serving, she keeps filling your plate and you will be too full that one will need support to get up from the chair.  M aunt's husband is very choosy when it comes to food. He will have only oil free food and don't eat onions. M aunt will cook the same curry in two ways, with ease. Also sometimes she will cook different menus to satisfy all. And she puts together the meal at super speed. And in many ways, she reminds me of my mother.  That way, I have always felt that I am staying at my home when I go there. She has never treated me as daughter-in-law. I am literally pampered there.  After we shifted to Pune, I had to visit my hometown and I stayed at aunt's house. She made this dosa for breakfast. I was simply hooked to it and understood a recipe cannot be judged by its ingredients alone.  And then it is a regular at my home.

This dos is almost an instant kind since no fermentation is required here. Tamarind is added to the batter and it takes care of the slight sourness to the batter. If you remember to soak the rice and dal the previous night, then the breakfast for the day is ready in 15 minutes including the grinding and chopping time. So if the cabbage in the recipe has put you off, do try it once and you will be proven wrong.

You need

• Parboiled rice - 1 cup
• Chana dal - 2 tblspn
• Tuvar dal - 1 tblspn
• Red chillies - 6-8 nos
• Tamarind - Gooseberry sized
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 tspn
• Hing - 1/4 tspn
• Salt to taste
• Finely chopped cabbage - 1 cup

Method
Soak rice and dal together overnight.

Soak tamarind and red chillies in warm water for 10 minutes. Soaking in warm water makes the tamarind soft. Grind the soaked tamarind, red chillies, hing , turmeric and salt along with few tablespoons of rice. Grind it to smooth paste and then add the rest of rice+dal mix. Grind it coarsely. To the batter, stir in the chopped cabbage. The batter will be thick like that of adai.

Heat dosa tawa and when it is hot, spread a ladle of  the batter. The batter is not easily spreadable like dosa. Using the ladle lightly spread the batter to a circle. Don't try to spread thin. This is a fairly thick dosa. Drizzle oil around the dosa. When the bottom is cooked, flip and cook on the other side.

The dosa can be had on its own since it has tamarind and red chillies to add spice. A side of coconut chuntney or sambhar is also good. Serve it hot.

Buttermilk sponge dosa and Peas Mint Wale

Buttermilk dosa is a spongy version of the verumarisi adai, for which only boiled rice is used. In this dosa, aval or beaten rice is also added and rice and aval is soaked in buttermilk. Since its soaked in buttermilk, no fermentation is required for the batter before making dosas. You get super soft dosa. This is a great hit among my relatives and friends who has tasted this at home.  Thanks to Mallika Bhadrinath for a super breakfast recipe.

 

 

 

You need

 

•  Idli rice /boiled rice - 2 cups 
• Aval/beaten rice - 1/4 cup
• Buttermilk - Around 3 cups, enough to soak the rice.
• Cooking soda - a pinch

Method

Wash and soak rice and aval together in buttermilk for 5 hours. I usually soak it overnight. The buttermilk will be almost absorbed by the rice and aval. You will not require to add extra water while grinding. Grind it to a smooth batter and add salt.The batter should be slightly thicker than the usual dosa batter. 

 

Before making dosa, add a pinch of  cooking soda and leave it for 5  minutes for it to act.  Heat the dosa tawa. Take a ladle of  batter and pour it on the tawa.  Slightly spread it and it will spread on its own.  The dosa should be slightly thick so that you get the pores well. Cover and cook for a minute. Flip and cook the other side also by covering. Enjoy hot with a spicy side.

 

 Peas mint wale

 

Peas mint wale is adapted from Nita Mehta's Mattar dhaniya wale.  The recipe calls for fresh peas. I think this should work with dried peas also. This is a one pot gravy except for grinding the paste, its a breeze. I liked this no-onion recipe. In the original, there was garlic flakes which I omitted.

 

 

 You need

 

• Fresh, shelled peas - 2 cups
• Tomato - 1 no, chopped into pieces
• Oil - 1 tbspn
• Hing - few shakes
• Cumin/Jeera-1/2 tspn
• Kalonji - 1/4 tspn

 For mint paste

•  Mint leaves - 2 cups
•  Ginger - 1" piece
•  Green chillies - 2 nos
•  Tomato - 1 tspn
•  Tamarind paste - 1 tblspn or juice of 1 lemon

 

 

 

 Method

 

Grind together the ingredients for the paste.  Heat 1 tbspn of oil in the pressure cooker. Add hing, jeera and kalonji. When jeera turns brown, add peas. Saute for 2-3 minutes. Add the mint paste to the peas and mix well.  Pressure cook for 2 whistles. Open the cooker when the pressure drops. Add salt and chopped tomato and cook for a minute or two.

 

Aapam - A Kerala Delicacy

The soft,spongy dosa which is slightly thick in the centre and lacy edges is truly an irresistable breakfast dish. Yes, I am talking about aapam, which is a very common breakfast of Keralites apart from puttu. The popular combo is Aapam and Potato stew or Kadala curry. Both the sides tastes awesome with aapam. In Tamilnadu, coconutmilk is usually served as a side which is also a good match for the soft aapam. There are umpteen recipes which guarantee you the best aapam. My recipe is a simple straight forward one, which I have adapted from my Amma. I have eliminated an additional step which Amma follows. Amma uses only raw rice and coconut for grinding. Then she will prepare a thick , but free flowing paste out of a tablespoon of batter mixed with 1 cup of water. The cooked batter paste is then mixed to the batter and left to ferment.  This is to get soft aapam. I omit that step and instead add a handful of urad dal while grinding.

To prepare aapam, you need that special pan to get the perfect shape for aapam - with a dome in the centre and lacy edges.  Now a days you get the non-stick aapam pans which makes aapam preparation a breeze. Earlier, amma used to use the deep kadai for this and had to struggle lifting the appam from kadai. If you don't have an appam pan, you make it on regular dosa tawa. You don't get the shape. But cover and cook only one side.

You need

Raw rice - 2 cups

Split urad dal  - handful

Grated coconut - from half of a coconut

Salt to taste

Cooking soda - 1/4 tspn

Method

Wash and soak rice and urad dal together for 5 hours or overnight. Grind together rice, urad dal and grated coconut till smooth. Add salt and leave to ferment for 6 hours. The batter consistency should be thinner than dosa batter. Add cooking soda and leave it for 10 minutes for the soda to act.  If you are not using the whole batch, divide the batter before you add soda. This way you will have fresh batter to start with the next day. With soda added batter, I feel you don't get the same result the next day.

Keep the aapam pan on the stove and smear little oil on the pan. Take a ladle of the batter and pour, starting from the outer edge to the centre of the pan. Hold the handles of the pan and give a gentle swirl so that some batter from the edges will flow down to the centre. This method will leave only a thin layer of the batter at the edge which will turn crisp on cooking. Cover with a lid and cook for 2 minutes on moderate heat. If you like a crisp exterior, you can conitnue to cook for few more seconds for it turn brown else remove.

I served with the chettinad tomato chutney which went very well with aapam.

Aapam is regular for breakfast at home and I have been thinking of posting this for a while. But will forget to click the picture everytime. My R.Manni (co-sister) has been asking for this recipe, for quite a long time and fianlly a mail from my reader prompted me to do the post at the earliest.

Vella Dosai

During my school days, most of my summer holidays are spent in my mom's native. Me and sister will be packed off to be with our grandparents for 2 months. Amma might join during the last week of the stay or so. So it was only two of us with thaatha and paati. How I miss those two months stay. Those were the days without TV. So it was always play and play alone. The whole day we used to spent in the backyard which is full of mango trees. We used to eat mangoes - raw, beginning to ripe, ripe ones etc. We had two kids of our neighbor to join us. So it was all fun. We cut the mangoes, mix chilly powder, salt and coconut oil. Paati used to scold if we eat more of this and she will make us eat curd rice again in the noon. Those days we used to have brunch.

Evening, when we come for tea, she will have some delicious tiffins made ready for us. This was one of them. This is a very traditional recipe. Its almost an instant kind. Whenever my paati makes this, she prepares adai also to complement the sweetness of the dosai. Even I prepared adai the same day. Shall post that later.

Ingredients
Wheat flour - 2 cups
jaggary - almost 1 cup. (Adjust this according to your taste)
water - 2 cups

Melt the jaggery in 1 cup of water. Remove scum if any.
Add the melted jaggery slowly to the flour and mix without forming lumps.
Adjust the consistency by adding water. Make dosa the usual way. Cook both sides.
This time I used karipatti vellam (palm jaggery) .

You can use ghee instead of oil or smear little ghee while serving if u make using oil. It will taste yummy with the flavor of ghee.

Eating Vella dosai with a dollop of homemade butter is truly out of this world.

I think it is only dosa posts for the last few days in my blog as it is the case in the blogosphere. Another entry to Srivalli's dosa mela

Koozhu Kaachina Dosai

This is a very traditional recipe which is almost forgotten in the present days. I remember my dad's mom making these. Thatha love this. In those days of stone grinding, this was an easy evening tiffin. Since raw rice is the main ingredient which doesn't need much of soaking time. Without much prior planning, this dosa can be made. Grinding raw rice is easier too. Whenever we talk about those days, invariably, topic of food also comes in. We used to recollect the traditional recipes prepared then. And I used to ask my amma to make this dosa. I love the tangy taste imparted by the tamarind extract.

Here is the recipe

For the batter

Raw rice - 2 cups

salt

For koozhu

Tamarind - marble sized

Ground batter - 1 tblspn

Preparation

Wash and soak raw rice for 3 hrs.

Grind to a fine paste using little water. If you add more water, it will be difficult to grind to a smooth paste.

Preparing the koozhu

Take a tablespoon of the ground paste and mix with the tamarind extract. Add water to make it to 1 cup. It is fine If it is little more also.
Boil the mix on stove top with constant stirring. It has a tendency to form lumps and stick to the bottom.

As it starts boiling, It will begin to thicken. Stop when it reaches a semi solid stage.

This is called koozhu (it will resemble the baby food - koozhu).

The color of the koozhu depends on the tamarind color. I used the fresh tamarind of the season. So it has not turned dark.

Prepare the batter

When cool, mix the koozhu to the ground batter.

Batter consistency should be thinner than the usual dosa batter.

When you pour the batter on to tawa, pour in a circular pattern and later spread lightly with the laddle.

Add oil on sides.

When cooked flip over and cook the other side too.

It is slightly sticky because of the tamarind added. You will be able to flip over without much difficulty.

I feel the koozhu is added to soften the dosa since only raw rice is used.

Needless to say, this is going to the dosa mela hosted by Srivalli.

Kollu Dosa & Sprouted Green Gram Amti

A healthy dosa using kollu. Kollu helps in weight reduction, reduces blood pressure and it is an excellent source of iron.

Ingredients
Kollu/Muthira/Horsegram - 1 cup
Parboiled rice (puzhungalarisi) - 4 cups
Methi seeds(vendhayam/uluva) - 2 tspn
Salt as required

Method

Wash and soak kollu,rice and methi seeds together for 6 hours.
Grind all the ingredients together to a fine paste. Ferment overnight or 8 hours. Batter consistency is of normal dosa batter.
Make little thick dosas. Add little oil on sides.

Cover and cook. Turn over and cook for a minute.


The best thing about this dosa is you can make this using less oil. Very tasty too.
Serve with molagapodi or any chutney of your choice. I served with sprouted green grams amti.


Kollu dosa is joining the dosa mela hosted by Srivalli.



Sprouted Green Grams Amti

Source: Mrs. Mallika Bhadrinath

Ingredients

Sprouted green gram - 1 1/2 cups
Oil - 2 tblspn
Tamarind extract - 1 tblspn
salt
chopped coriander leaves - 1 tblspn
mustard seed - 1/2 tspn
curry leaves few
Since I didn't have enough sprouts, I added one chow chow also to the recipe to increase the quantity.


For grinding
Grated coconut - 1/2 cup (Dry roast coconut till brown on stove top or MW for 2 mts)
Onions - 2 (Chop and fry in onion till brown)
Red chilly powder - 1 tspn
Roast the following spices in little oil
cinnamon - 1 inch pice
cumin seeds - 2 tspn
cloves -3


Grind all the above ingredients to a smooth paste.


Steam cook the sprouts in a cooker for 8 minutes. (No need to keep the weight)
Heat little oil in a kadai, add mustard seeds, curry leaves and ground paste.
Stir for few minutes, add tamarind extract, salt and cooked gram.
Pour just enough water and cook till it becomes thick.
Garnish with coriander leaves.

Menthiya Dosai

Menthiya Dosai / Methi seeds dosa



There are umpteen varieties of dosas. Add or remove an ingredient, you get a new type of dosa. Always wondered, how new variants are created. Its true, necessity is the mother of invention. May be in the past, when urad dal was scarce or was not affordable to common man, this dosa must have got birth out of a creative mind. This is a quickie but not the instant kind. The dosa takes only raw rice and methi seeds as ingredient. So you can prepare the batter in a mixer too. That is you can do with out a wet grinder.


Ingredients


Raw rice - 2 cups

Boiled rice - 2 tblspoon ( Optional -this gives softness to the dosa)

Methi seeds - 2 tspn


Wash and soak all the ingredients together for 4 hours. Grind to a fine batter. Ferment it overnight.

Take a laddle full and spread to make dosa. This will not be paper thin.

Cook both sides.



I love menthiya dosa with ulli-mulaku chutney. That combo is just out of the world. This time I served with coconut chutney.

For Coconut Chutney
grated coconut - 1/2 cup
pottukadalai/chutney dal - 2 tblspn
green chilly - 3 nos (adjust to your taste)
salt

Grind all the ingredients together adding little water. Adjust the consistency by adding water after grinding. Season with mustard, hing and curry leaves.

Whole wheat dosa

This time I am posting a dosa out of whole grain.

Whole grains are believed to be nutritionally superior to refined grains, richer in dietary fiber, antioxidants, protein (and in particular the amino acid lysine), dietary minerals (including magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and selenium), and vitamins (including niacin, vitamin B6, and vitamin E).
Source-wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_grain

Whole wheat - 2 cups
Raw rice (Pacharisi) - 1 cup
Cumin seeds - t tspn
Salt

Soak wheat for 8 hrs.
Rice need to be soaked for 3 hrs only. Soak then separately.
Grind both wheat and rice together to a smooth batter. Since we are using whole wheat, u may find the skin of the wheat not grinded fine. Thats alright.
Add salt and allow it to ferment.
Before making dosas, add a tspn of cumins seeds and start preparing dosa.
The dosa will not be very thin but not like uttappam also.

You can serve dosa with any chutney of your choice

Cucumber Wheat Dosa

An easy to make breakfast recipe and healthy too. This recipe will come in handy when you run out of resources for the usual idly and dosa. Also can try this for a change.

Ingeredients
Wheat flour - 2 cups
Grated cucumber - 1 cup
Grated coconut - 1/2 cup
crushed/powdered pepper - 1 tea spn
jeera - 1 tea spn
salt - to taste
water - as required.

Make a smooth batter mixing all the ingredients. Keep it aside for 15 mts.
Make dosas. You get good soft doasas.Any type of chutney goes with it.