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Friday, November 28, 2008

Onion Rava Dosa

I love onion rava dosa because of its crispiness and the mild flavor of peppercorns, coriander leaves and onion pieces embedded randomly in the dosa. I usually order it when I visit South Indian restaurants in the Sunnyvale. But we have to wait for a long time at Saravana Bhavan which we usually visit for dinner. Sometimes the wait even exceeds 40 minutes. The waiters dilli dally while getting the menus to us, then after a long wait they come to our table and take our order. Finally after an era we are served our meal. So, instead of waiting so long for one dosa at the restaurant, I made this dosa at home on the new griddle and it came out very well. This dosa does not require any fermentation like the dosas which are made of urad dal and hence be made in no time.
Previously, I would usually avoid making thin dosas..like rava dosas at home as my tava would give out lot of smoke which would activate the smoke alarm. The dosas also required a lot of oil else they would stick to the tava. But, I would always think that there is something wrong with my dosa batter. But recently when my parents visited me, my mom told me that there was nothing wrong with the batter and I was using too much oil for every dosas and there was something wrong with the tava.
I then came to know that the tava I was using was not a dosa tava and was a mexican fajita griddle. I did some research on the internet and bought this griddle from Macy's. Now I can make very thin dosas like rava dosas successfully at home.

Ingredients
2 cups rava or semolina
1 cup maida or all purpose flour
1 cup rice atta or rice flour
1 medium onion
3 tablespoon chopped cilantro or coriander leaves
1 teaspoon pepper corns
1/4 cup curds (optional)
2 green chilies
1/2 teaspoon salt


Method
Finely chop the green chillies and the onion. Mix it with the rava, maida, curds (optional), pepper corns, salt and rice flour. Add lots of water to make a very liquidish batter. The batter should be as thin as buttermilk. Keep the batter aside for around 1 hour. The rava will absorb some water, so add more water if needed to made a thin batter.

Heat a oiled tava(griddle) and spread a very thin layer of the batter on the tava. Cover and cook the dosa. As the dosa is very thin, traditionally, it is not flipped and cooked on the other side. However, I like it to be cooked on both sides, so I flip it and cook it uncovered for around 20 seconds on the second side. Serve immediately with sambar and chutney.