Plain Dosa Batter

Welcome to “The World of Dosas”! Call it “Crispy Crepe” in its thinner, crispier version or a “Plain Pancake” in its softer, thicker avatar, these rice and lentil based dosas made from fermented batter are here to stay!

Dosa is one of the commonest dishes in Homes and Darshinis (chain of restaurants) of South India. Thanks to its ingredients, Dosa is rich in carbohydrates, poor in saturated fats and sugar, free of gluten, filled with protein, fermenting process further augmenting the Vitamin B and C content.

This heavenly staple dish, indigenous to South India, has its origins linked to Udupi town of Karnataka, India. The earliest mention of dosa can also be found in the 6^th century Tamil literature.

Dish type: South Indian Breakfast/Supper Dish

Preparation time: 5 min

Soaking time:  5 hours

Grinding time: 45 min

Fermenting time: 12 hrs

Yield: 2 kgs (approx..)

Ingredients

Rice                             1000 gms

Black gram dhal          250 gms

Methi seeds                20 gms

Poha (Avalakki)           100 gms (thick variety)

Salt                              50 gms

Directions

Soak rice and methi seeds together for 5 hours. Soak poha separately for 5 hours

Soak black gram dhal for 3 hours (after 2 hours of soaking rice, methi and poha)

Pour about ½ litre water into the wet grinder and switch on the grinder.

Now start putting rice, urad dhal and poha one after another into the grinder.

Keep adding very little quantities of water and stir the batter at intervals.

The batter keeps sticking to the sides of the grinder. Keep clearing the sides off the batter by pushing the batter towards the centre.

Let the grinding continue till the texture of batter becomes smooth.

Now transfer it to a vessel big enough to hold all the batter in less than half its height. This is to prevent the batter that rises up on fermenting from spilling out of the vessel.

Now add salt and mix the batter thoroughly. Close the vessel with a lid and let it stand for about 12 hours.

Plain Dosa Batter is now ready.

Tete – a – Tete:

Procedure for preparing batter remains the same even when done with “mixie”, a popular short n sweet name for Indian mixer grinders!

You can use this batter to make a variety of dosas like steam dosa, masala dosa, vegetable dosa, etc.

Poha or Avalakki is known by many other names like “beaten rice, “pressed rice”, “flattened rice and “flaked rice”

Recipe Contributor: Smt. Saraswathi