Crisp Dosa

You will also need a griddle, spatula, and a wet grinder (to grind rice and lentils). If you don’t have a wet grinder, your blender should also work, but with a wet grinder the batter is just smoother.

Soak rice and urad dal for at least 6 hours or overnight. Then grind them separately into a smooth-flowing batter. Grinding the two separately and then mixing them makes the batter lighter. It also helps in speeding up the fermentation process.

Mix the two, add salt, semolina/poha, and cover the batter. Let it ferment overnight. The lid should be tight enough to trap the temperature inside but loose enough to let a little circulation of air. So don’t use an airtight container. Also, the temperature should be somewhere around 80-85ºF for proper fermentation.

To make the crepe, heat a griddle. To test, I sprinkle water on the griddle; if the water sizzles away right that moment, then the griddle is hot enough.

In a bowl, mix water and oil. This water and oil mixture is used to clean and oil the pan after every dosa comes out of the griddle.

Spray some oil on the pan. Dip a piece of cloth in the water oil mixture. Squeeze out extra water and then rub it over the pan to clean excess oil.

Now pour a ladle of dosa batter. Starting from the center in an outward direction, swirl the ladle in a circular motion, spreading the batter into a thin crepe.

When the batter is spread, after a few seconds (8-10 seconds) it will start getting dry. Spray or sprinkle oil on the dosa.

Give it a few more seconds and the bottom of your dosa will start getting darker and golden brown in color. This means your dosa is almost ready.

At this point, if you want to add any filling to your dosa, you can place the filling in the center and fold the two sides, one over the other. The filling can be a simple potato filling or vegetables or even minced/cooked meat.

Traditionally, dosa is served with sambhar (lentil soup cooked with vegetables) or spicy coconut chutney.