Tomato Dosa

Its dosa time again!!!! This time its tomato dosai.

Ingredients for dosa are the same as i have given for plain dosa.




Ingredients:
Idly rice                  1 1/2 cups
Par boiled rice        1/2 cup
Urud dal                 3/4 cup
Fenugreek              1/4 tsp
Cooked rice           hand full
Tomatoes              3-4 sliced
Red chillies            6
Curry leaves          few
Salt

Preparation...
Wash and soak the rice along with urud dal and fenugreek for 6 hours.
Grind it with salt and a hand full of cooked rice and don't take the batter out yet.
In oil temper the tomatoes, red chillies and curry leaves till the tomatoes are half cooked. If u prefer tomato dosa to be a bit hot u can add more red chillies.
Add the tempered tomatoes to the batter and grind it again for a minute.
Let the batter ferment over night and prepare the dosas again as i have described in the plain dosa.

Coconut chutny goes well with tomato dosa.

Note:
Fermented batter can be used and stored in the fridge for a week's time, it left outside, batter will get sour.

Thayir Vadai (Curd Vada)

Ingredients:
Urud dal               1 cup
Red chillies           7
Ginger                  1" curshed
Onion                   1 chopped
Rice flour              1 tsp
Coriander leaves   few strings chopped
Curd                    2 cups
Warm milk           1/2 cup
Hot water            1 bowl
Salt

To Grind:
Coconut               1/2 cup Shredded
Green chillies        3

Tempering:

Channa dal           1 tsp

Urud dal               1 tsp

Red chillies           4

Curry leaves         1 brig

Hing                     a pinch

Garnishing:

Carrot                  1/2 cup Shredded 

Coriander leaves   1/2 cup

Kara boondhi

Preparation...
Grind the shredded coconut along with green chillies to a smooth paste.
Mix well half a cup of curd with the paste.

Mix 1 1/2 cups of curd and the milk with salt.
Temper the curd with above given things and let it cool.
Drop in the the well crushed ginger.
Add the remaining curd which has been mixed with the coconut paste and keep the curd aside.

Wash and soak the urud dal for a maximum of 6 hours.
Grind urud dal. red chillies and salt smoothly with very little water.
To the paste add the chopped onion and coriander leaves and the rice flour. Add a little bit of water if needed now, cos rice flour will turn the batter consistency to be a bit hard.
Make medium sized balls out of the batter and drop them in the hot oil.
Fry them till golden brown and take them out and drop them in to the hot water for just 40 secs (this helps the vada to soften a bit immidiately).
Take the vadas and drop them in the curd misture now.
Garnish it with shredded carrot, chopped coriander and kara boondhi.

Refridgrate the vadas and enjoy them after 4 hours.
Makes 12 medium sized vadas for 1 cup of urud dal.

Note:
The curd vadas will remain good for a maximum of 4 days when refridgerated, if left outside will turn sour.

Plain Dosa

Dosas are my favorite! Being from south India we were brought up with Idlis and Dosas from our childhood years. It has suchhh an amazing taste that i have never even felt the term of boredum when it comes to dosas with sambhar, especially when it is prepared by my mom!!!!  

Dosas go so well with side dishes like sambhar, idly podi and a variety of chutnys. When you prepare dosa with a bit more of oil and cook it for some time longer than the regular dosas (these are called as murugal dosa), we need not even think about a side dish! There are even so many varieties of dosas, to name a few onion dosa, tomato dosa, carrot dosa, masala dosa,peas masala dosa, paneer masala dosa, rava dosa, dal dosa(Adai), green gram dosa(Pesarattu), corn dosa, ragi dosa, wheat dosa  etc... and there is a softer version of  dosas which are called as "uthappam" and again in the uthappam we have onion uthappam, tomato uthappam, carrot uthappam, paneer uthappam, etc... and. I can keep on writing about dosas endlessly.

 My earliest of the memories about dosas goes to my school days. When we come running from the school in the eve, mom will be preparing crispy dosas even as we enter the front door and the aroma of the dosa is incomparable. We will jst go ahead and stuff in 3 or 4 dosas at a time, never mind how much ever space we have in our stomach and then go to play :-). Anyone can prepare the dosa when given the batter, but to get a perfect one, makes an expert. My mom can prepare crispy crunchy dosas with the dosa batter and with the same batter soft uthappams with lots of small holes in it. That's something soo wonderful!!!

Cheers to the people who love Dosa!!!

Ingredients:
Idly rice                1 1/2 cups
Par boiled rice      1/2 cup
Urud dal               3/4 cup
Fenugreek            1/4 tsp
Boiled rice            1 hand full
Salt

Preparation...
Clean and soak the rice along with fenugreek and urud dal for 6 hours.
Grind everything along with a hand full of boiled rice and enough water to a smooth paste.
Add salt and let it ferment over night.
Now before preparing the dosas, add 1/2 cup of water to the batter and mix well.
Take a ladle full of batter and spread it in a circular motion on the hot tawa and sprinkle oil or ghee and simmer the flame.
Turn over and cook the other side.

Serve the dosas hot with sambhar and variety of chutnys.

For Thin Crispy dosa:
Take just half a ladle full of batter and spread it real thin on the tawa and follow the same procedures as given above.

For soft Uthappam:
Take a ladle full of batter and pour on the tawa, don't spread it much. Sprinkle oil or ghee and simmer the flame for a min and turn over and cook so the batter on the top gets cooked.

Note:
Fermented batter can be stored in the fridge for a week's time. If left out at room temp, batter will get sour.

Masal Vada

Ingredients :
Channa dal                1 cup
Onion                        1 chopped
Garlic                        2 - 3 cloves chopped
Fennel seeds              1 tsp
Curry leaves              10
Coriander leaves       1 hand full
Green chillies             2 chopped
Red chillies                4
Salt

Preparation ...
Soak the channa dal for 3-4 hours and grind it coarsely with red chillies and salt.
Add onion, garlics, green chillies, curry and coriander leaves to the ground paste and mix well.
Roast the fennel seeds till aroma comes and add it to the paste and mix.
Take a small ball of the mix (lemon size), flatten it a bit and cook it in hot oil.
Deep fry both the sides till dark golden brown.
Remove the vadas from oil and place it on a tissue paper to drain oil.
Serve it hot with coconut chutny.

Serves 15 medium sized masal vadas.

For Coconut Chutny
Ingredients:
Coconut                 1 cup shredded
Curry leaves           4
Coriander leaves    1 string
Green chillies          2
Salt

Tempering:
Mustard seeds or Urud dal     1/2 tsp
Curry leaves few

Preparation...
Grind the above given ingredients to a smooth paste along with salt.
Temper it with mustard  seeds or urud dal and curry leaves.

Serve with the masala vadas!


Note:
We add garlic and fennel seeds to avoid gastric troubles because of channa dhal and for proper digestion respectively.
We can refirdgerate the mixture for 2 days and use when desired.

The Deep Dive...

 It was not even two weeks into my marriage . I travelled to United states with my hubby.

  The second day after we landed there I had to cook for the first time. I asked him what 

  he wanted for lunch and he said "Even Rasam would do".

  I thought voww , thats simple . It took me some time to finish it and served him hot.

  In no time I could see tears flowing down his eyes. I was shocked and I thought he is

  shedding happy tears to taste the food his wife cooked.

  I took a handful and I started crying too, yes you guessed it right , the rasam was full

  of salt and extra spice. We both went out to a local restaurant for lunch then...

  My journey of cooking started like this and now I have come a long way...took it as a

  challenge and now consider it as an art..I am going to share with you the things I tried 

  and items I am going to try..So come on lets have some fun and of course some food....