Dhokla

Dhokla or Dhokra is a vegetarian food item that originates from Gujarat state in India. It is made with a fermented batter made up of with chana daal and rice. Dhokla can be eaten as a breakfast or as a side dish or even as a snack.

This is pretty much similar to the south Indian tiffin variety Idly. To make dhokla Rice and chanadaal are used, in the ratio 2:1 and soaked for 5-6 hours. The mixture is ground and this paste is fermented over night. The fermented batter is then steamed for about 15 minutes on a flat dish and cut into pieces. These chopped pieces are seasoned with mustard seeds, corinader leaves and fresh coconut. For the typical Gujarati style, an equal amount of water and a little sugar is added to the seasoning. As I want it spicy, I have avoided adding sugar.

Dhokla with Mint chutney

Ingredients:

Chana daal / Bengal gram - 1 cup

Rice - 2 cups

Turmeric - pinch

Salt

Baking soda - 1/2 tsp

For seasoning -

Oil - 1 tbsp

Mustard - 1/2 tsp

Urad daal / Black gram - 1 tsp

Chopped corainder - 1 tbsp

Grated fresh coconut - 1tbsp

Method:

Wash and soak the chana daal and rice for about 5-6 hours. Grind them into a smooth paste in a blender. Consistency should be like beaten yoghurt or like idly batter. Ferment it for about 6-8 hours or over night.

To the fermented batter add salt, baking soda and turmeric. Mix it thoroughly. In the mean time, boil the water in a idly / dokla steamer.

If you dont have one then, take a wide bottomed pan and add water till about 1 inch depth. Now place a metal stand or any wide bowl.

Now greese a cake tin or pressure cooker tin and pour the batter into the tin.

Slowly place the tin into the wide bottomed vessel on top of the metal stand or plate and cover it with lid.

Steam the batter for 15 minutes on medium high flame.

Steamed dhokla

Turn off the heat and prepare the seasoning. Heat a small pan with 1 tbsp of oil. Add mustard and urad daal to it. When the urad daal changes the colour, add 1 tbsp of water to it and immediately pour over the steamed dhokla.

Now cut them into small pieces and garnish with coriander and grated coconut.

Serve it with any chutney of your choice. Mint chutney is the best option. 

Uthappam / pancake in Sandwich maker

This is one of the interesting recipe to make kids happy. To make this either you can use Dosa batter or fresh batter prepared using rice and urad daal flours. This is also for the people who don’t have Indian tawa / Pan.

Ingredients:

Dosa batter – 4 cups
Onion – chopped ½ cup
Green chilli – chopped 1 tsp
Grated carrot – 2 tbsp
Chopped coriander – 1 tbsp
Salt

If you don't have dosa batter, then you can prepare this instantly with out grinding by following the below steps.

Urad daal powder – 1 cup
Rice flour – 3 cups
Water - to make the batter, yogurt like or Pan cake batter consistency.


Mix every thing and leave for 6-8 hours (Overnight) to get fermented. To the fermented dosa batter add chopped onion, green chilli, coriander, grated carrot along with some salt.

Pre-heat the sandwich maker by applying some oil on the plates. When it is hot enough pour the batter into the pits and close the lid.

Allow it to get cooked for about 3-5 minutes. Turn them on to the other side and cook until it is done.

Once done, slowly lift them and serve them with chutney or ketchup.

 Uthappam made in sandwich maker

Masala Idly

This is another variety of idly with added spices. This is very much similar to Rava idli. 

Masala Idly

Ingredients:

Urad daal - 1 cup
Ground Rice / Idly Rava - 2 1/2 cups
Baking soda - 1/4 tsp
Salt - 1 tsp

For Masala:
Mustard - 1 tsp
Cumin - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 5
Grated carrot - 2 tbsp
Cashews - 10
Channa daal - 1 tsp
Green chilli chopped - 1 tsp

Method:

Soak urad daal for 6 hours and grind it into fine paste.
Wash and drain the excess water from idly rava and mix it with the urad daal batter.
Mix well and allow it to fermant.
Once the batter is ready, then prepare the masala
Heat a small tava and add 1 tbsp of oil.
When the oil is hot enough, add mustard, cumin, channa daal, cashews, chilli and curry leaves one after the other.
Fry until carrot becomes transparent.

Idly masala

Just before making idly, stir the batter thoroughly by adding salt and baking soda, and the above mentioned masala.

Masala Idly mixture

Pour 1 ladle of batter into each mould and steam. for 15 to 20 minutes.

Masala Idly

Pongal / Pulagam Roti

Pulagam roti

I was bit surprised when I hear about this recipe. The main ingredient of this recipe is, left over Pulagam or Pongal. Easy to make, yet a very good treat for our tongue.
I got some left over Pulagam / Moong daal rice, which I made last night. I thought of doing some pulagam roti as breakfast.

Ingredients:
Pulagam / Pongal - 3cups
Rice Flour – 3 heaped tablespoons
Salt – 1 pinch (Just enough for the rice flour0
Onion – 1 finely chopped
Chilli paste – 1 tsp
Coriander – chopped 1 tbsp

Method:
Mash the pulagam / pongal thoroughly with out any lumps. If you feel rice is bit hard, microwave it for 1 minute or so. It is easy to mash when it is warm. Slowly add rice flour, salt, chilli paste and coriander.

Pulagam, Onion, chilli paste, Rice flour

Mix every thing until if forms like dough consistency.

Divide the dough into equal parts and make round balls.

Heat the tava (Time management), smear each dough ball or even your palm with little oil and start pressing the dough with palm to make it flat and thin like roti.

Either you can use a plastic sheet or wet cloth or even butter paper. I have used butter paper, as I can directly lift the roti along with the butter paper and place on the hot tawa. When the roti is ready, drizzle some oil on hot tava, and gently place the roti and drizzle some more oil on top.

When it is done on one side, turn the roti to other side, drizzle some more oil and allow it to cook.

Serve hot with a dollop of butter.

Pulagam Roti with butter

Murukulu / Savoury snack

There is lots of crunchiness in the name itself. Aa ha going back to nostalgia. Mom always prepares them at least once in a month. Just to make her life easy, she always prepares them either before we wake up or after we sleep so that we can avoid the accidents in the kitchen.

My mom’s preparation starts with soaking the rice, drain and dry them under shade. Roast Urad daal and the shade dried rice and bribe one of us to go to the grinding mill (Pindi mara). She also adds coarsely ground roasted peanuts to give the extra nutty flavour and crunchiness. Unfortunately due to lack of time, now-a-days most of us end up with buying the ready made flours. I managed to find the ready made roasted flours in London.

Ingredients:
4 cups – Rice flour
1 cup – Roasted Urad flour
½ cup – sesame seeds - roasted
½ cup – pea nuts – roasted,skinned and coarsely ground
Salt – 1 1/2 to 2 tbsp
Chilli powder – 1 tbsp
Oil to deep fry

Method:

Heat a kadai/ deep pan with oil to deep fry. Whilst oil is getting hot (Time management), sieve the flours along with salt and chilli. This is the easiest method I found to mix different flours with out much effort. If you don’t have the sieve, no worries. Just mix every thing with hand and add coarsely ground peanuts and sesame seeds. Once all the dry bits are mixed well, add about 3 ladles full of hot oil. Do not put your hands straight into the hot oil, instead, cover the hot oil with the flour and slowly try to mix every thing by adding water little by little until you get the dough consistency.

Muruku dough

Take the muruku mould and fill it with the dough.

Muruku mould filled with muruku dough

Apply pressure to squeeze the dough. Experts, they squeeze the dough directly into the oil, where as the beginners like me will squeeze the muruku on a butter paper or plastic paper. 

Slowly lift them into hand one at a time and slowly slip them into the oil. Fry them till golden colour. Remove them using slotted spoon. Drian and allow them to cool down. Store them in an air tight container.

Enjoy spicy muruku with hot chai

Note: If you feel, the dough is bit dry or hard, take part of the dough, sprinkle some water and then knead it again.

Rava Idly

Idly plays a dominant role in Indian kitchen. There are lots of variations in idlis. Rava idli is the easiest variety.

Click here for more useful tips.

Ingredients:

Urad daal - 1 cup
Ground Rice / Idly Rava - 2 1/2 cups
Baking soda - 1/4 tsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Method:
Soak urad daal for 6 hours and grind it into fine paste.
Wash and drain the excess water from idly rava and mix it with the urad daal batter.
Mix well and allow it to fermant.
Just before making idly, stir the batter thoroughly by adding salt and baking soda, and pour 1 ladle of batter into each mould and steam.

 

I have used the below idly mould to prepare mini idly or button idly

Mini idly mould

Rava idly

Rava idly served in sambar

Note: If you don’t have idli steamer, you can still steam them in any big container with lid, even a deep pan will do. If you do not have idli moulds you can use any small cup like containers.

Chittor idly

The unique method of preparing the idlies is very famous in Chittor district (Andhra pradesh). My mom is an expert in making these sponges. Yes, I call them as sponges, as the idli will retain its shape back like a sponge when we squeeze and release.

Few useful tips:

Always soak the rice and daal separately for at least for 6 hours.

Once you grind them allow to ferment for at least 8 hours.

In cooler countries, always place the batter in a warm place like heated oven (turn on for 5 - 10 min and make sure to turn it off) or even place the batter vessel inside a hot pack or thermo pack to maintain the temperatures.

If the batter has not fermented enough then you can add baking soda by which idly will become fluffy.

Ingredients:

Rice of any variety – 3 cups
Urad daal – 1 cup
Fenugreek seeds – 1 tsp
Cooked Rice - 1/2 cup
Salt - 1 1/2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp (Optional)

Method:

Heat water until it just starts boiling. Wash rice and transfer the rice into hot water and DO NOT CLOSE THE LID until the water gets cool. This is a true substitute for par boiled rice. Soak the urad daal separately.

Grind the urad daal and cooked rice into fine paste along with fenugreek seeds. Grind rice not too smooth and not too coarse and mix everything together and allow to ferment. It is not a big deal to grind the batter using wet grinder. But, it is a tough task to gring the urad daal in a mixer as urad daal is very sticky in nature, it get stuck when there is not enough water. I grind urad daal bit watery (Make sure not too watery). We do not require water to grind rice,so drain all the water from the rice and grind coarsely. Now add the grounded rice to urad daal and allow it to fermant.

When it gets fermented scoop the batter into idli moulds and steam them.

 

Usually it takes 12 - 15 minutes to steam idly. Leave them for 5 minutes, so that the idly becomes bit firm and we can scoop out easily with out disturbing the shape.

 

Idly with peanut chutney

Ponganaalu

This is another traditional element of South Indian cooking. In Rayalaseema, we call them as Ponganalu / Guntha ponganalu. Also this is a popular breakfast dish from the Konkan regions in the west coast with a different name 'Appe' with slight variations in ingredients.

How I plan my breakfasts is first day dosa and second day ponganam with the same batter.

You can also prepare the batter just for this purpose.

Ingredients goes like this

For the batter
1/2 cup Urad daal (Black gram)
2 cups - Rice

For mixing:
2 Onions - finely chopped
4 -5 green chilli finely chopped
Corriander - fist full
Curry leaves - fist full
Channa daal (Bengal gram) - roasted and soaked in water for 10 min
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Salt
Oil

Method:

Soak them together for 6 hours, grind it into fine paste and allow to ferment for 8 - 10 hours. For the ponganam, you need to have a special pan like this

Ponganala penamu

Mix all the above mentioned ingredients except oil

Batter, Chilli, onion, corriander, curry leaves, cumin and channa daal

Heat the mould with few drops of oil in each pit and pour the batter carefully into each pit and cook it till the outer surface becomes golden colour.

Turn each ponganam upside down using a fork or spoonso as to cook on the other side.

 

Repeat with the remaining batter to make more ponganalu. Serve hot with kobbari podi.

Ponganaalu with Kobbari podi

Ulli Pesarattu (Green gram dosa with Onion)

Ulli Pesarattu

Ingredients

Whole green gram (Pesalu) - 1 cup
Rice - 2 tblsp
Ginger - 1 inch
Onion - 1 cut into small pieces
Green chilli - 2 cut into small pieces

Method:

Soak green gram and rice for 3-4 hours and grind into paste along with salt and ginger.

Green gram, rice and ginger

Heat a deep pan and add one tsp of oil. When the oil is hot add chopped onion and green chili and fry for 2 minutes using a dash of salt until translucent. Those who like raw onion, no need to fry.

Heat a tawa (Griddle), when it hot pour a laddle full of batter and spread it in circular motion. Sprinkle some oil and fry until it turns to gold colour. Flip to other side until it gets cooked. Turn it back and sprinkle the onion chili mixture.