South Indian Dosa

The South Indian Crepe. It looks a bit like a doily, I know. After about 4 days of mostly eating dosa I think I got okay at the technique.

My first try looked like this:

Not bad, but not the beautiful lattice work that I like. I experimented with making it thinner, sometimes ending up with gaping holes that needed to be filled in:

but it was crisp and chewy. It's supposed to be bendy, and be able to fold around its fillings but mine never got that way, even 12 or so dosai later. Maybe my heat was too much, or I didn't use enough oil, or the batter was too thick, or too thin...Well, I'll keep trying. Since I'm allowed to eat with both hands (and/or utensils), it didn't really matter that the dosa was so un-bendy.

It's really simple to make. It's just slightly fermented long-grain rice and lentils. Here's what you do:

3 cups long-grain rice (basmati is perfect)
1 cup skinless split urad daal (skinless black gram)
3/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
Salt to taste (a sprinkle or 1/4 tsp.)
Oil of choice

So it's maybe hard to find split urad daal. I went to a place in Pointe Ste-Charles (the equivalent of the Goulds in Newfoundland...kind of) and said I was making dosa and the man gave me a bag of dal. I said, "This is for dosa?" (This was before I actually had looked at a recipe), and he said "yes." Don't trust a man when it comes to Indian food.

It was chana dal, which was fine, because I can make daal (the soup. The spellings of all these things are a bit ambiguous) out of that, and I used it as a tuvar dal replacement in the sambhar (recipe to come). Different flavour, but I like the nuttiness. Anyway, so then I went to Parc Extension and asked a female store clerk where the split urad dal was. "Skinless or not?" she asked. "Skinless, " I said. She pointed me to an unmarked bag around the corner. What's up with not labeling bags? She lined up her hands vertically as she shook her head. Oh! The one next to it! Another unmarked bag that was just a tiny bit lighter but otherwise identical. Yes, that one, she nodded.

"Why do you know about urad dal?". Not "how", but "why", she had asked. I'm assuming she just used the wrong word, but the verbal slip was interesting. It made it seem as though urad dal is something I'm not allowed to know about, as if it's a secret.

"I'm making dosa," I said simply. "I like South Indian cooking". I smiled, thanked her, and left. I like to think that she shared a secret with me.

Directions:
You need to make this the night before or start VERY early in the morning. The nice thing is, you don't need to make it all at once, since it just keeps fermenting on day 2 and 3. I'm not sure how long it's okay to let it keep going, but I felt comfortable using it up to day 4.

Wash the rice and dal in several changes of cold water, swirling the grains around with your fingers like you would for perfect rice.  Drain it and add the fenugreek seeds. Add enough water to cover the rice and dal by about 2 inches. Soak overnight, or about 8 hours.

The next morning, drain all the water again. Put the rice and dal mixture in the blender or food processor, in batches if necessary, and grind to a grainy paste. You can add a little water if you need to.

Put the ground mixture back into the bowl you used to soak it and add enough water to make a batter. Mine was initially pretty thick, so don't be afraid to thin it out. It should coat a spoon thickly, but you're going to spread this very thin, so remember that it's a crepe not a pancake.

Add the salt and then put the batter in a warm, dark spot, covered, for 6-8 hours. I put it in the oven with the door open on lowest heat. I would have normally just put it in with the light on, the oven turned off and the door closed but for the "dark spot" rule.

Now the batter's ready. Stir.

Get about 1/4 cup of oil ready in a bowl with a basting brush at hand, and take a paper towel dipped lightly in oil and spread it over the bottom of a large frying pan. The oil should be barely visible.

Turn the heat to medium and let it warm up. When hot, take a 3/4 full ladle of batter and pour it in the middle of the frying pan. Now sweep the dosa in ever-expanding circular motions with the bottom of the ladle (plastic if the pan is nonstick!) until the dosa is about 8 inches (the size of a small cake pan) in diametre. Tiny holes are normal and just fine. Some kinds of dosa have them and some don't. It's personal taste and what kind of filling you have that determines if this matters.

Once the batter is spread, immediately dip the basting brush liberally in the oil and drizzle it all over the surface of the dosa and also around its edges. Now hold the pan by its handle, lift up and swirl it to make the drizzled oil spread all over the dosa. Careful not to swirl the dosa right off the pan like I did the first (few) time(s).

After a few minutes check the bottom of the dosa. It should be light brown. The first dosa sometimes isn't evenly browned, but don't worry. Years of pancake-making taught me this is fine, and the second batch will be more consistent. Flip the dosa. Cook 1 more minute, or until the bottom is lightly browned. I don't like it soft and chewy, so I made sure it really got enough cooking time, but I think I overdid it because then you're supposed to fold the dosa in half and let it cook 30 seconds more. This is probably an important step I skipped...

You can eat dosa plain, or with coconut chutney. Since I'd have to buy a whole coconut to get a decently sweet-tasting chutney, I skipped it and just went with hot sauce. Very non-traditional. The second dosa was ready at the same time as my potato masala filling (recipe to come), though, so that one got all wrapped up burrito-style...well, cracked burrito-style. Still, delicious burrito-style. The next day I added sambhar. That was when everything in my world got a lot sunnier.

To make the second dosa you need to run a paper towel under some ice cold water and rub it over the pan to remove any dosa debris and cool the surface. Apparently this makes your dosa not break as easily since the pan is cooler. Then proceed as before with a little more oil on a paper towel and 3/4 of a ladle of batter. So easy. 5 ingredients. Go forth.