Thursday, January 28, 2010

A 'No Grinding' Dosa Sandwhich for A.R.Rahman's Concert

A 'No Grinding' Dosa Sandwhich for A.R.Rahman's Concert



A.R.Rahman at the Sydney 2010 festival!!! This was reason enough to stir out a flurry of excited activities among the Indians here. My daugther and son in law were eager to go with the entire family. Hubby and I however, decided to pass the noise, the rush and the waiting, and stay back home with our little grandaughter instead. My daugther’s friends had gone to the venue at Paramatta grounds at 11:00am itself to book spaces, for the show that was to begin at 7:00pm in the evening. They were undeterred by Sydney’s scorching Summer Sun beating down relentlessly! Such was the enthusiasm for the event!

They had all decided to carry some homemade eats along, so that everyone could enjoy the assortment of home food while the ears feasted on the mesmerizing music of the century’s most celebrated maestro. After pondering on a tasty, filling, and yet ‘fast’ food, I suggested they take the easy to handle dosa sandwiches. Grinding batters with my daugther's small mixie is quite a task, and so I decided to do away with the grinding, and prepared these dosas for her by using flours that are readily available in the Indian stores instead. It turned out quite well and the group enjoyed their pot luck along with AR’s best music. Here is how I prepared it without grinding.
INGREDIENTS:
Rice flour – 3 leveled cups
Urad dal (Black gram dal) flour -1 heaped cup
Beaten rice – 1 tbsp
Fenugreek seeds – 1tsp
Butter milk – 1 cup
Salt – 3 tsps
Oil- for cooking
METHOD:
1. Mix rice flour, urad dal flour and salt together.
2. Finely powder beaten rice and fenugreek seeds, and add it to the flour mixture.
3. Blend in butter milk.
4. Keep blending with a clean hand, adding water little by little until you get a smooth and thick dosa dough consistency.
5. Cover and keep it in a warm place to rise for 8 hours or overnight.
For preparing the dosas:
6. Heat a greased tava. Sprinkle little water to test the temperature. If you get a hissing sound the tava is ready.
7. Pour a ladle of the batter on the centre of the tava and spread it into a moderately thick dasa.
8. Dribble oil around the dosa.
9. When lots of small holes appear, cover with lid and decrease heat.
10. Cook on low fire for a minute or until the top surface looks cooked.
11. Flip the dosa to the other side and cook for four seconds and remove from pan and leave it on flat surface to cool.
12. Increase heat and pour the batter for the next dosa.
FOR THE FILLING:
Mix one portion of dosai molagai podi (also known as Gun Powder) with one portion of sesame oil, and apply liberally on one side of the dasai. Fold the dosai in the middle and stack it up in a dry container or pack in a foil. Ideal snack for picnics and take away. You will get twenty five palm sized dosais for the above mentioned ingredients. A standard size drinking water glass was used to measure out the flour.