Rava Dosa - Restaurant style (South Indian Crispy Savory Crêpe)

Have you ever wondered how those Rava Dosas in restaurants have that beautiful net like texture. Well, I discovered that recently! I know, some of you may already know the trick, but coming from a North Indian family (where Idli, Dosas were the weekend highlights!) meant limited access to those secrets and tips. There was no Internet and google search my mom could depend on like we all do. She still keeps reminding me how lucky we are to have all this information at our finger tips, while in their times it was only friends, books, magazine and of course the Trial & Error method! :)

Still remember as a kid, mom painstakingly making dosa and idli from scratch. For Sunday breakfast, preparation would start from Friday! - The soaking, grinding and fermenting. I used to be so impatient to try some dosas, would pester mom to make at least an uttapam (soft savory pancakes with vegetables) soon after the batter was made. Mom would keep telling me to hold on till the batter ferments, but me-being-me, would not listen and get it my way. Oh, I can't stop writing stories and my life around food, can I!

OK so back to the recipe. This is super quick, super easy. Go ahead and treat yourself to some nice homemade, hot rava dosas – with texture and taste – restaurant style!

Just add onions to make an onion rava dosa, or stuff masala after it is ready to make a rava masala dosa! 

You need:

Maida/ All purpose flour - 1/2 Cup

Rice flour – 1 Cup

Rava/ Suji/ Semolina – 1 Cup

Ginger – 1 tsp (very fine chopped or grated)

Green chilies – 1tsp (very fine chopped)

Cumin – 1tsp

Crushed Pepper – 1 tsp

Salt – 1 tsp (adjust to taste)

Hing – ¼ tsp (I know a lot of you may not like hing, but it does make a difference here)

Fresh coriander/ Cilantro – handful (fine chopped, try using only the leaves, but that's OK! :) )

Dry grated coconut – 2 tsp (optional)

Buttermilk/ Curd – optional

Onion – 1 medium (finely chopped)

Ghee (clarified butter) or Oil – as much or less as you like. :)

1. Mix all ingredients other than Ghee/Oil and Onions (last two from the list of ingredients above)
2. Add water and make a very thin batter. Almost that of buttermilk consistency. Don't worry, rava dosa batter does in fact look like the buttermilk you get in south indian darshinis!
3. Ok, now to making the dosa restaurant style, heat a nonstick tava/ griddle.
4. Uniformly spread some chopped onions (depending how much you would like) on the tava. Skip if you don't like onions in your rava dosa.
5. Hold the bowl containing the batter close to the griddle (this is to avoid messing your kitchen counter and stove top as the batter is too thin, but please keep safe distance!). Now scoop out the batter in the cup of your palms and sprinkle over hot griddle. Yes, just keep scooping and sprinkling till the entire tava is covered, and that is the only way you will get that nice net like texture. (If it is not a non stick pan , spray non-stick spray ,wipe clean and sprinkle the batter, but this would mean a lot of effort !).
6. Cook on medium high flame. Don't add the oil/ ghee immediately and wait for a while for the dosa to cook a little. This trick makes  it nice golden brown and crispy! And remember, this dosa takes a little longer than regular dosas to get that golden brown color, so be patient. And don't worry about the dosas breaking, they will eventually hold very well once cooked.
7. I have found a nice way to stop my dosas from falling apart. After spreading the dosa, I trickle some batter along the circumference as if joining the edges with dots. And this stopping the net texture from breaking when you are removing the dosas.
8. Serve hot with pickle, or chutney. 

*Please mix the batter with a whisk. I know some of you may be too lazy to use a whisk but trust me it makes the whole process so risk free of those annoying lumps. Last thing you want to do in this quick recipe is searching for lumps and removing them! Use a whisk, in fact for any recipe that requires making a batter, it will save you a whole lot of unwanted effort. Stressing on this of course means I have been lazy before and learnt it the hard way :)

** You can use potato stuffing, the same one you use in masala dosa to make a nice rava masala dosas.