After seeing dosa being made by @pravilsabu, whose post you can check out here I got a craving that just couldn't be stopped. I investigated this Indian flat bread that is gluten free by default and got way too excited. I eat plenty of gluten but I like gluten free days.
I realized that I may or may not have had a dosa before. In Bangkok last winter, we went to a popular Indian restaurant that was known for having quite a few vegan options. They even had items marked "Vegan". The place was called Dosa King. You would think that if we went to a place called Dosa King that we would have eaten dosa. The thing is that we were so displeased with the service that we don't recall anything that we ate. I know there was some kind of bread, that could have been naan, or perhaps dosa. The food had a good taste but it was cold. The servers were extra terrible and made us feel like we were not welcome. This was unusual in Bangkok by our experience. We read the reviews. They were mixed. Some said it was the best place ever and others described the same experience as us. We told our friends about it and they said they had a bad experience as well. We thought perhaps they didn't like foreigners even though one of our friends was Thai and I am Thai in appearance.
I don't eat at Indian restaurants in this city of Montreal Canada, because I don't trust that they will omit the ghee. If dining were permitted I would go and make the request but for take out, it's a no go for us. We have four Indian restaurants within three minutes walk from our apartment.
I decided to give it a go and make dosa for the first time. Please don't shame me. It was a fail if I were to be judge by an expert Indian cook, but for me it is the beginning of many possibilities in different foods of the world. I noticed in my research that there are so many variations of every Indian food and breads that I would have to study over two lifetimes to know everything.
Since I have little energy working late afternoons and evenings, I cut corners in order to experiment. I followed the basic guide lines. I omitted the yeast. I also did not get a good fermentation. It's still not very warm so it didn't really ferment. That was a fail. I used rice and yellow mung beans. It's what I had.
Apparently you only have to soak it for one hour but I left it overnight. Okay I kind of forgot it. The next day I blended it in a food processor and a blender. I have bad machines so it took a while to make it smooth adding a little water bit by bit. Finally it was smooth. I was super excited to try cooking this. I put it in a bowl and put it in my non functioning oven to ferment with pans of hot water in it. It did not do the job. Dosa fail.
I was not going to waste the effort, and besides it was an experiment. The next day was the moment of truth. It didn't look like the photos of other awesome dosas, however this was the first time in my life that I have made a pancake like this without flour of any kind. The excitement of this was worth the fail.
They were totally misshapen and made me laugh a bit. I added fenugreek seeds and carom (aswain) seeds to the mix before hand. Those are the spots.
The carom seeds I ordered online by accident a while back and I have them sitting in my cupboard. They taste a bit like oregano, but different.
I needed a filling and it seems potatoes are number one on the list even though I was scared of how filling it would be. I did my own rendition of the classics. I have certain items in my fridge. I also was strapped for time since this was breakfast before work. We have breakfast at around noon.
I won't give a recipe, as this is not an instructional post. I am mostly sharing my experiment and discoveries as pathetic as it may seem to some that are pros at this stuff. I will say what I put in.
Potatoes cooked and slightly mashed, carrots, onion, garlic, ginger, hot chili, cilantro, cabbage, tomato, dry chili, cumin, coriander, garam masala, mustard seeds.
I started with cooking the onions, then garlic, ginger, shallots and peppers. I added the rest of the ingredients along with the tempered spices ,cabbage and cooked potatoes. The tomatoes were from a can. I didn't have fresh ones at the time.
There was no time to make chutney so I put a dab of onion chili jam that was given to me. It was in a jar. I know this is so mish mosh and would be laughed at by the pros, but we thoroughly enjoyed this.
Marc didn't know that it was entirely gluten free and was blown away by it when I told him.
It is an endless journey to discover all of the foods that are consumed around the world. I should consider myself lucky that I have access to many things that are not available in some countries. I wish I had fresh tropical fruits and plants that are not to be found, but there are still enough things to work with here.
This is only the beginning of my foreign food journey. I have put another batch of rice mung bean mixture to ferment. I will not stop until it smells like it's fermented. So exciting.
design by: @KidSisters
Rice will become rice flour so yeah the ingredient will a little bit the same as flour. :)
Yeah it took me all these years to try these haha.
OMG........ Really delicious right?
And I'm glad that you tried this. 😍
I am trying to make it better. Longer fermentation. Thank you great teacher. This is a new discovery for me thanks to your delicious post.
I think fermentation depend on temperature. It varies from place to place.
I live in a cold place but I think one more day for my new batch will do it.
ya sure . Good job. Appreciate it.👌
You did well considering how difficult dosa is to make. I used to live in south India (dosa is from there) and my landlord would make it. The pan has to be super hot I believe. I've seen it made millions of times but never made it myself. However, dosa saved me many a morning while on bicycle trips in south India. Dosa comes in so many forms its great! Paper dosa is my fav. You can try idli and vada next. Two of my favs. If you ever make it to Penang, Malaysia there is some of the cheapest and best south Indian food I've had outside of India.
Cool. I'm excited to try this more. The thing is I've been to Indian restaurants, and even been to Malaysia and never considered this. I would have thought it was another form of naan duhhh haha.
I'm so Canadian it's not funny. I hope I make it back to Malaysia some day again, but things aren't looking good in our current prison. They're building thicker walls by the minute. Thanks for dropping by.
Yes I have a Polish/Canadian friend in Toronto keeping informed on the draconian government actions there. Crazy.
Wow, looking yummy, I would have some from you. I love dosa but I don't know how to make it. You know so many delicious foods, my friend.
I still don't know how to make it but I will keep trying because I never had it before. I think your husband could make it for sure. Thank you my friend!
Yes, he knows it but he never cooks here because he needs a special pan to make dosa. When we lived in Cambodia we have pan for make it and I just looks he made it and I think it’s not easy to make and spend time so much more. That’s made me don’t want to try it.
Wow! I am very hungry! No food yet! One big plates for me please!
Haha you look at food on an empty stomach like I do. Will you have a fresh grown fruit for me please.
I am afraid you’ll have to pick them by yourself! These mangoes are quite high up but we have the long pole for you to take the fruits!
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Ahhhhh, you are still coming up with all these extraordinary dishes you never seem to run out of them well done 👍
I am learning a lot from the amazing Hive chefs here haha thanks.
I can see that and they are putting up some amazing dishes like yourself, my wife is even using a lot of there recipes 👍
A huge cast iron skillet helps a lot, and a good spreading technique. It is something that takes some practice. For fermenation, just as a reverse reference, I learned how to make ginger bugs from various websites, but they were all North-American. Mostly the fermentation time was 3-5 days on the websites, but I noticed things got bubbly within 24 hours in Cambodia.
I eventually realized I wasn't doing anything wrong, just that the timeline is a lot faster in the tropics without A/C than a western home. Depending on your house, it might take days to properly ferment, keep experimenting.
Well, but how was it though for your first try? Were you satisfied with the end result?
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Okay so I was more happy about the idea that this dosa thing exists even though I have heard the word. It did not ferment enough but we loved it in the state that it was. I did it again and it was actually fermented and turned out much better. I am hooked but the second time I left it for two days in an oven with pans of hot water that I refreshed. It got swollen and had that ripe odor which was not bad but clearly something.
Loved those ones but I am going to attempt another again. Thanks for the advice. I will not be purchasing a huge cast iron skillet though. I will have to stick with the non stick.