Masala dosa

Ingredients

• Rice — soaked six hours300 g
• Urad dal — soaked six hours100 g
• Fenugreek seeds1 tsp
• Potatoes — boiled800 g
• Onions2
• Mustard seeds1 tsp
• Curry leaves12
• Turmeric1 tsp
• Green chillies3
• Ginger30 g
• Vegetable oil100 ml
• Coriander30 g
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Soak the rice separately and the dal with the fenugreek separately, six hours each.

   15 min

2. 2

   Grind the dal to a light fluffy paste, then the rice to a slightly grainy one, and combine them.

   20 min

3. 3

   Salt it, cover it and leave it somewhere warm for eight to twelve hours, until it rises and smells sour.

   20 min

4. 4

   Pop the mustard seeds in oil, then add the curry leaves, onion, chillies and ginger.

   10 min

5. 5

   Add the turmeric and the crushed potato, season and warm it five minutes; that is the filling.

   12 min

6. 6

   Heat a flat pan, wipe it with the oiled onion and pour a ladle of batter, spreading it in a spiral from the centre.

   8 min

7. 7

   Drizzle oil around the edge and cook until the underside browns, two minutes. Add the filling and fold it over.

   22 min

About the dish

The batter ferments for eight to twelve hours somewhere warm. The sourness that develops is the flavour of a dosa rather than a side effect; unfermented batter gives a bland crêpe.

The ratio of rice to urad dal is three to one. The lentil gives the bubbles and the stretch, the rice the crispness; changing the ratio makes a different dish.

The pan is wiped with half an onion dipped in oil before each dosa. It is an old trick: it leaves the thinnest film of fat and the batter does not stick.

Worth knowing

• — A dosa is cooked on one side only. Turned over it loses its crispness and becomes an ordinary pancake.
• — In a cold kitchen the batter will not ferment. Put it in a switched-off oven with the light on; that warmth is enough.
• — It comes with sambar and coconut chutney. Without them a dosa is incomplete, and in South India it is never served that way.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

520 kcal

Protein

14 g

Fat

18 g

Carbs

76 g

More from India

• Dal tadka — A lentil stew finished by pouring sizzling spiced fat over it. That step is the dish.
• Butter chicken — Yoghurt-marinated chicken, roasted, in a tomato and cream sauce finished with fenugreek.
• Chicken biryani — Rice and marinated chicken finished together under a lid: the layers cook in steam rather than by stirring.