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.  

Poha (Avalakki/ Beaten Rice Snack)

A very popular Indian snack or breakfast!

You need:

Poha/ Avalakki/ Beaten rice – 1 Cup (Thick variety)

Onion - 1 medium size (fine chopped)

Green chilies - 2 nos. (slit)

Curry Leaves- 7-8 nos.

Ginger - 1/2 inch (finely chopped)

Vegetables - Carrots, Sweet green peas, Potatoes (chopped into small pieces)

Lime Juice – half a lime or as per taste

Mustard seeds – ½ tsp

Cumin seeds – ½ tsp

Hing/ Asafoetida - 1/8 tsp

Oil - 2 tsp

Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Sugar – ½ tsp (optional)

Salt – As per taste

Peanuts – ¼ cup or adjust as per your liking (roasted)

Butter – 1 tsp (optional, though it does add to the sweetness of the poha)

Coriander leaves/ cilantro – handful (chopped)

1. Wash poha in water and decant all the water. Keep it aside.
2. Steam cook all the vegetables in a microwave till they are almost done. Usually takes about 2 min each.
3. Heat oil, add mustard and cumin seeds. Once they start spluttering, add hing, green chilies. 
4. Once green chilies change color a little bit, add curry leaves and ginger. Fry for around 30 sec.
5. Add onions, salt, turmeric and fry till onions are just about to become translucent.
6. At this stage add all the vegetables. Fry for 1-2 min.
7. Now add poha, lime juice, sugar and give it a gentle stir since poha breaks or gets mashed up very easily when moist. Cover and cook till poha is completely soft from inside too.
8. Add peanuts and coriander leaves. Mix well by gently folding in.
9. Switch the heat off and serve hot.

Veggie Sandwich

For breakfast today, I made a simple sandwich out of the vegetable cutlet/chop , and it turned out just great! Well, nothing fancy - just your usual lettuce, tomatoes, couple of slices of cheese, salt and pepper.


So there you go - two uses of the same recipe! I am sure you had it all figured out when I posted the cutlet/chop recipe. But in case you hadn't, here's how it looks like!!


Ciao!

Suji Upma/ Rava Upma

Classic South-Indian breakfast and snack.  Some how it took me a lot of time (read attempts) to get  this recipe right, so I decided to share it with everyone . This upma is the soft, granular and fluffy kind and not the sticky variety. 

Eat it with chutney, pickle or sambhar.

You need:

Suji/ Semolina – ¾ Cup (fine variety) 

Onion – ½ medium size (fine chopped)

Oil – 3 Tbsp

Cumin seeds – ¾  tsp 

Mustard seeds – ¾ tsp tsp 

Curry leaves – 7-8 nos

Green Chili – 2 nos. (adjust to taste)

Hing/ Asafoetida –  Pinch / 

Lime juice (optional) – 1 tsp

Chana Dal/ Split bengal gram – 1.2 Tbsp

Urad dal/ black gram washed – 1 Tbsp

Salt

Water – 1.5 Cups

Green peas – 1/3 cup (I use frozen baby sweet peas)

1. In a pan, roast suji in a tbsp of oil, on a very low heat, till it becomes golden brown. Transfer to a bowl.
2. Now heat the remaining oil, add the mustard and cumin seeds. Once they crackle, add hing, green slit green chilies, chana dal, urad dal and cook till chana dal gets a pinkish color. Now add the curry leaves. Stir for 30 secs. 
3. Add onion and fry till translucent. Now add the peas, water and salt and bring it to a boil. 
4. Add suji while stirring continuously. 
5. Keep stirring till all the water dries up. Now lower the heat, cover and cook for another minute.
6. Stir again, switch off the flame and cover. Open after 3-4 min.           
7. Ready to serve! 

*Adding roasted peanuts is optional (though I prefer not to put any)

** You can also add chopped veggies like carrot, beans, tomatoes etc.   

In-betweens - Crispy banana pancakes

served with orange marmalade
pancake with mango topping

1 cup flour
2 bananas
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp honey
1 tsp baking soda
1 egg
Milk as per consistency required
Sugar or honey depending on the sweet tooth
Few raisins (for taste, gives a real twist to the classic Indian taste)
Optional - unsalted butter for better taste

> Whisk all the ingredients enough make a smooth batter.
> Spray oil in a heavy based pan and spread the batter in circular cakes
> Fry on medium heat to cook, then lower flame to make it crisper.

Serving
Top it with sliced banana or chopped mango or any other fruit of ur choice ..with a little cream and honey !!

Enjoy !