No Ferment Dosa

Even though Idli, Dosa, Uttappam are popular breakfast items, A and I can have them at any meal. I love these foods and make them at least three to four times a month. Of the meals that we eat on weekends, usually one comprises of idlis or dosas. I SO love these foods that even the thought of it makes me hungry sometimes. The only problem is that it takes a whole day just to get the batter ready. But thanks to cousin M, now I can at least make dosas in very little time.

The reasons I love this quick dosa recipe are - it is very simple, and the dosas are very close to regular dosas in taste (especially when dunked in sambar). The recipe calls for soaking the rice and lentils for a few hours and grinding them to a smooth paste, just like any other dosa recipe. But batter can be prepared with as little as 4 hours of soaking the ingredients and dosas can be made as soon as the batter is ready.

Rice and Mixed Lentils Dosa

Ingredients:

1/8 cup whole urad dal/split urad dal

1/8 cup toor dal

1/8 cup masoor dal

1/8 cup chana dal

1/8 cup moong dal

1/4 cup white rice

1/4 + 1/8 cup brown rice

1/2 tsp methi (fenugreek seeds)

Salt to taste

1. To make the batter, soak rice and lentils separately for 4 hours or more. You can use all types of dals (lentils) that you have on hand. The amount of rice used in this recipe is same as the total amount of all the lentils together. So if you have a cup of mixed lentils, use a cup of rice. I generally use whatever lentils I have on hand.

2. Once soaked, grind the rice and lentils (together or separately as you prefer) to a smooth paste. Add salt to taste. I have seen that many people add little bit of baking soda or ENO to the instant batters/mixes as it gives the batter some lightness. I normally don't add these to the batter, but you can use it if you want.

3. Now that the batter is ready, heat a griddle and pour a ladleful of batter in the center. Spread the batter from the center of the pan towards its edge in a circular motion.

4. Drizzle a few drops of oil along the side as dosa cooks. Once the batter on top starts looking dry, flip the dosa and let the other side cook. Add little more oil if required.

Serve hot with sambar and potato masala.

Sweet Coconut Rice

I am back to blogging after two long months. I was studying the entire summer and am so glad that it is over. So no more studying for me now. The laziness really took over me for a couple weeks after the exam. My poor brain was so tired that I needed to relax for a while.

Over the past couple weeks I haven't been cooking anything much besides regular meals. I have spent those weeks watching movies and tv, going out shopping/window shopping, knitting and sleeping. Now I feel fresh and am all set to try those bookmarked recipes.

Two days back it was Narali Pournima and I thought I should make coconut rice at least this year. Narali Pournima is a Maharashtrian festival. A dish called 'Naralibhaat', which means coconut rice is a special preparation on this day. I remember celebrating even the tiniest festival as a kid. My grandmother used to make all those special dishes associated with each festival. Thinking of those days really makes me nostalgic. My granny made an awesome coconut rice. It's literally been ages since the last time I had it.

If you have a sweet tooth like I do, you would definitely love this rice. Another reason I like it is the combination of coconut and jaggery. I totally enjoy all those foods that have the coconut-jaggery combo. This rice is made by adding a mixture of coconut and jaggery to cooked rice.

Sweet Coconut Rice

To make this rice, you would need the following -
1 cup basmati rice
2 cups water
1.5 cups jaggery
1.5 cups shredded coconut, fresh or frozen (I used fresh)
A pinch of saffron threads soaked in a tablespoon of warm milk
1.5 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
5-6 pieces of cloves
1/4 cup mix of cashews and raisins (optional)
1/4 tsp cardamom powder

1. Before you start, wash the rice two to three times and keep it aside for about 30 minutes.

2. Cook the rice as you would normally do (1cup rice + 2cups water) and pour saffron milk over it. Now gently mix it with a fork. An alternative to making this rice is to saute washed rice on ghee and then cook it.

3. In a pan add about 1-2 tsp of ghee, jaggery and coconut. Let it simmer until coconut and jaggery are mixed well. Make sure that there are no lumps of jaggery. Once cooked, the mixture will look like this -


4. In another pan, heat a tablespoon of ghee and add cloves to it. Add cooked rice and saute for about a minute.

5. Now pour the mixture of jaggery and coconut over rice and gently mix everything together. Add nuts before mixing. Let it cook for another minute or so.

6. Add cardamom powder if you like. Serve hot or at room temperature.

I made this rice in a jiffy and forgot adding nuts to it. That is why you don't see any nuts peeking through the rice.

Masala Dosa & Uttappa

It has been one crazy winter this time. Come every weekend and the weather ought to be bad. For the past few weekends there have been ridiculous amounts of snow. If at all snow showed any mercy, there has been this ruthless cold all through the weekend. Though cold can be manageable, there is nothing you can do when everything is snow packed. These are the times when food comes to comfort you. One of such comforting dishes is masala dosa served with hot sambar. I am a big fan of south indian food. I can literally have idlis and dosas everyday. Believe me it is heavenly to have dosa dunked in hot sambar.

Onion uttappa is another dish that I totally love. I use the same batter to make dosas and uttappas, so whenever I make dosas, uttappas come hand in hand. Masala dosa is made by putting some potato sabzi inside the dosa. I use the following to make dosa batter -

Ingredients:
3 cups rice
1 cup urad dal
1 tbsp chana dal
1 tbsp toor dal
1 tsp methi (fenugreek) seeds
Handful of thick poha

To make the batter, soak all these ingredients separately (rice and lentils.. rest can be soaked in the same bowl)overnight or for 7-8 hours in warm water. I noticed that soaking in warm water speeds up the fermentation, so I generally use warm water. After they are soaked, grind them into a paste which should be slightly on a rough side. Now let the batter sit to ferment. It will take anywhere from 8-10 hours at the least for the batter to ferment. Add salt before you use the batter.

To make dosas, take a ladle full of batter and place it on the center of a pan. Spread it out in circular motion and let cook. Make sure that you spread a thin layer. Add some oil on it while it cooks. Dosa is ready to be served. Serve it with hot sambar and coconut chutney.


For Masala (potato sabzi) you need -
3 medium potatoes (boiled and diced)
1 large onion (cut into thick slices)
4/5 curry leaves
3/4 green chillies
1 tsp sugar
Salt to taste
Tempering of 2 tsp oil

In a pan make tempering and add to it green chillies, curry leaves and onion. Saute the onion until tender. Add potatoes, salt and sugar, and mix well. Let it cook for a minute or two. Masala is ready for your dosa. You can also add about a teaspoon of grated ginger root if you like. Add it to the tempering just before you add onions.

For Sambar you need the following :
1 cup cooked toor dal
1 medium onion
1 medium tomato
1 cup veggies of your choice
1.5 tbsp sambar powder
3 tbsp tamarind pulp (or as required)
3/4 dried red chillies
Few curry leaves
1/4 tsp ground clove
Salt to taste

1. Make tempering of 1 tsp oil and add curry leaves and red chillies to it.
2. Add onions and tomatoes and saute until tender. Add other veggies of your choice and let them cook.
3. Add cooked toor dal, tamarind pulp, sambar powder (I use MTR brand), salt and water, and let it boil for some time. Add some ground clove at the end (optional).

Uttappa:
Put some dosa batter in the center of a pan and spread it out just as you would do for a dosa but slightly thicker. Add some chopped onions and green chillies on top while the batter is still wet.


Once one side cooks, flip it and let the other side cook. When you flip it the onions will caramelize giving uttappa a really nice taste.
Serve hot with sambar or coconut chutney.

Comforting Kadhi and Khichdi

It was one of those evenings after a long day of being done with the loads of pending "to do things". I was so tired after all this work, I did not have any energy left. A has a sore throat after eating super-spicy food at an Indian restaurant earlier this week, so I wanted to keep it simple. I immediately thought of Kadhi-khichdi, it's a comfort food after all. There are different versions of khichdi all over India.

Kadhi brings back some childhood memories. I still can't forget when we were on a vacation in Himachal and reached our destination pretty late. We were supposed to be there by 9pm and reached there after midnight. It was very cold and everyone was extremely hungry. Since it was an arranged tour, their cooks immediately started cooking, and served us a steamy khichdi and screaming hot kadhi. The chillies in kadhi looked just like cherries. My brother got a couple of them in his kadhi and started teasing me that he alone was going to eat all the cherries. To his horror they were extremely hot chillies :P He started screaming and I burst out laughing :)


For kadhi you need-
1 cup plain yogurt
2 Tsp besan (gram flour)
1 Tsp grated ginger
2 Tsp sugar
Salt to taste
1-1.5 cups water (or as desired - if you want your kadhi on a thicker side, add less)

For tempering-
2 Tsp Ghee (clarified butter)
1/2 Tsp cumin seeds
1/4 Tsp asafoetida
1/4 Tsp turmeric
3/4 Dry red chillies
6-8 Curry leaves
Take yogurt in a bowl. Add to it besan, ginger, sugar and salt. Add water as needed. Whisk it, making sure that there are no lumps of besan. Heat some ghee and add to it cumin, asafoetida, turmeric, chillies and curry leaves. Add the yogurt mixture and stir well. Turn the heat off when kadhi starts boiling.

Ingredients for khichdi-
1 cup rice
1/2 cup moong dal
2 medium potatoes cut into cubes or any combination of veggies you like (optional)
1/2 Tsp red chilli powder
1 Tsp masala (one that you use for daily cooking)
1 Tbsp jaggery
Salt to taste
3 cups hot water

For tempering-
1 Tbsp oil
1/2 Tsp mustard and cumin seeds
1/4 Tsp asafoetida
1/4 Tsp turmeric
6-8 curry leaves
Before you start, rinse rice and dal, drain all water. Make some tempering (heat oil and add mustard,cumin, asafoetida, turmeric, curry leaves). Add diced potatoes or other veggies and little salt. Let it cook for a while. Now add rice, lentils, hot water, salt, red chilli powder, masala and jaggery. Stir well, put the lid on and let it cook. If you like, you can add about 1/4 tsp cumin powder and 1 tbsp unsweetened coconut flakes. Top it off with a dollop of ghee and serve with hot kadhi.

Matar (Green peas) Rice

I love green peas and this rice is one of my favourite dishes. It tastes delicious and is pretty simple to make. Main ingredients you need are rice, peas and some fresh masala, which basically is made of just four ingredients - coconut, corriander seeds, cumin seeds ad dried red chillies.

Ingredients:
2cups Basmati rice
1cup peas (you can always add more)
4cups water
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
4 Tsp corriander seeds
2 Tsp cumin seeds
6-8 red chillies (dried)
1.5-2 Tbsp jaggery
5-6 curry leaves
Oil
Salt to taste

Before you start wash the rice and drain all water, and keep the rice aside. Start by taking about a teaspoon of oil in the pan. Add coconut flakes, chillies, cumin and corriander seeds and saute it for about a minute or until the mixture color changes slightly. Take them out and grind them into a fine paste. Add about a tablespoon of oil in the same pan to make tempering. Now add rice to it and saute it for a minute. Add peas and saute for another minute and then add water (preferably hot). Now add salt, fresh masala and some jaggery. Put the lid on and let the rice cook. Serve it with some ghee (clarified butter), freshly grated coconut and cilantro.