Rava Dosa- my style!

After having returned from a lovely vacation and not having eaten ANY cereal or bread at all, my taste buds have gotten used to eating different kinds of breakfast every single day! Of course, I know very well that this will soon fade away and we'll eventually be eating cereal or waffles or bread & eggs everyday all over again.........but for now, we shall enjoy some variety.

This morning felt like eating rava dosas (salty-spicy-pancakes, Indian style). My mom taught me how to make awesome rava dosas the last time she was here. I love this recipe because it totally follows my basic cooking rule: simple and quick cooking.  And there is absolutely no fermentation required as in case of normal dosas.

All you need is some maida (M) (all purpose flour), rice flour (R) (available in any Indian grocery store) and fine sooji rava (R) (cream of wheat). A small onion, some cilantro and green chillies. Oh some salt and cumin seeds. That's it! My mom taught me a ratio for the first three ingredients that I think is 1:2:3 or is it 3:2:1?? See, I always forget that ratio and in the end, I just eye ball everything, like I usually do. Yep, that's me! But no worries because the end result is usually pretty good!

So I mix up the first three dry ingredients, MRR and then pour in cold water to mix it all up and make a nice thinnish batter. You don't want this batter to be too thick else it'll result in thick and unappetizing dosas. Now remember the ratio I mentioned in the earlier para? Today I actually followed the M:R:R=1:2:3 and it turned out excellent. Therefore now I am sure that the ratio is indeed 1:2:3. Yaay!

Next I cut a small onion, some cilantro and a couple green chillies and added it to the batter. Salt per taste and also a dash of cumin seeds. Mix it all up and done! Meanwhile I have my pan heating up on the stove. I check the temperature of the pan by sprinkling some cold water onto the heating pan. I know that the pan is ready to go when the cold water just evaporates with that typical "phusshh" sound (OK, I don't know how else to explain that sound!).

Then I pour some batter (make sure you mix the whole thing up and then ladle it in) onto the hot pan, just like you would for a pancake. You know things are going in the right direction when you see holes forming immediately as you pour the batter onto the hot pan. Again, pretty much like a pancake. Gotta spoon in some oil around the edges of the dosa to help it cook and not stick to the pan. Sometimes you might need a few drops of oil in the center of the dosa as well. Don't worry about the shape--- doesn't have to be a perfect circle.

See those holes? That's good!

After a minute or two (depends on how brown and crunchy you like dosa/pancake to be), flip it. Cook again for a couple minutes (more if you like it crunchier) and it is ready to be eaten!!

Flipped over. This one was for my daughter, who prefers soft dosas.

Now some chutney on the side would be really good, but eating this dosa sans chutney works real well too. My family likes a little bit of ghee (clarified butter) atop the dosas.

Rava Dosa ready to be gobbled up!

Rava Dosa- a delicious treat for the whole family!