Adai Dosa
Adai dosa is a traditional south Indian pancake which is made using a combination of ground rice and lentils mixed with roasted onions or grated coconut.
Ingredients
- 1¼ cup Idli Rice or Boiled Rice
- ¾ cup Dosa Rice or Raw Rice
- ½ cup Toor Dal
- ½ cup Whole Urad Dal
- 2 tbsp Channa Dal
- ¼ tsp Fenugreek or Methi Seeds
- ½ cup Grated Coconut
- 2 Green Chillies
- 2 Red Chillies
- ¼ tsp Asafoetida
- 2 sprigs Curry Leaves
Instructions
- Wash and soak idli rice, raw rice and channa dal in water for around 3-4 hours.
- Similarly, wash and soak toor dal, urad dal and the fenugreek seeds separately for the same amount of time.
- Drain most of the water from the soaked rice. Transfer the rice and some of the reserved water (around 2 to 3 tablespoons) to a mixer and add the green chillies and red chillies and one sprig of curry leaves and grind to a coarse mixture.
- The texture of the ground batter must be like Rava or Semolina. Transfer the ground batter to a separate vessel.
- Now drain the soaked toor and urad dal and grind this to a similar coarse batter with 2 to 3 tablespoons of the reserved water.
- Mix the ground dal mixture along with the previously ground rice batter. Add little water to adjust the consistency if required. Make note not to add lot of water, as this batter is ought to be slightly thick. Now add some salt and asafoetida and rest this batter for couple of hours.
- Before making the dosas, mix half a cup of freshly grated coconut and some chopped coriander and curry leaves. Adjust the batter consistency with little water if required. The batter should be of a thick pouring consistency and not drip immediately when dropped from a ladle. If you would like to replace the grated coconut with onion, saute one large sized onion finely chopped in little oil and mix with the batter.
- Heat a cast iron tawa and spread a little oil and spray some water. Pour one ladle of the batter and spread it slightly thick (unlike dosa). Make a hole in the centre using a spatula for even cooking and add some oil. Adai generally requires little extra oil for cooking. Cook on medium flame till the edges start to brown.
- Flip the dosa and cook the other side also on a medium flame. Add some more oil if required. Serve hot with chutney, avial or ghee and jaggery.
Notes
- Soak the rice and dal only for a max of 3 to 4 hours as there has to still be some crunch to it.
- It is very important to grind this batter very coarsely. This is what would yield a good texture and crispness to the dosa.
- Be careful, not to make the batter thin. The consistency of this batter has to be thicker than the regular dosa batter.
- This dosa does not require fermentation, however resting it couple of hours before cooking provides great results. If you are in a hurry, you could make dosas immediately after grinding the batter too.
- The batter could be stored in refrigerator for 3 to 4 days and used when required. If you are making a large batch, I suggest adding the onions as and when required in small batches, else the batter could turn sour quickly.
- Try to use a heavy cast iron tawa for making Adai as it helps in uniform cooking of the Adai and also yields crisper adai.
- Cook adai on medium flame, else it would not be cooked from inside.
- Be generous with the amount of oil used for cooking the adai, as it helps cooking through inside.
- You could either use grated coconut or chopped onions in the batter before cooking the Adai. Both the combinations taste equally good.
- The methi seeds helps giving the adai a nice golden colour when it is cooked. So do not skip this ingredient.