Maravalli kizhangu Dosai

Years before Namakkal was into poultry farming, most of my father’s clients were into agriculture. Tapioca cultivation was one of the mainstream farming. Dad’s clients used to bring us bag loads of tapioca and other stuff that my mother could bring some deliciously cooked meals to the table. She and our then maid, Velamma Aaya,  would team and work on the produce, cleaning, cooking mostly and distributing the excesses. We have watched them work together and cook up some stuff that we relished.

Once the tapioca has been taken out and the bag has been returned, Velamma will drop the tapioca in a big drum-like utensil filled with water. She would rub them hard that along with the sticking soil, some skin of the tapioca will peel off. Then, a discussion will follow as to how many recipes to make, portion the vegetable accordingly and send the rest to neighbours.

With tapioca, especially, they never tired to make crisps, dry curries and other stuff. One of those were dosais that needed tapioca to be grated and ground along with rice and dhal to make the batter. They would get to work together grating the tapioca and grind the soaked ingredients for dosai or adai. She will also make vadai occasionally as an evening snack. She could make dry vegetable roast kari, mashed podimas and some more.

I had mentioned to amma that I intended to buy tapioca and make dosai. She shared her recipe with me. During the course of the next week, she dropped a few reminders that I should try the dosai. Then I picked up about a kilogram of tapioca from a vendor the other day. The root was farm fresh and both the skins came off easily with thorough washing. I made three dishes, dosai, roast kari and vadai over the next few days. Dosai turned out soft as that is how we like. I am sharing the recipe for the same.

Maravallikizhangu Dosai

Ingredients:

Makes 10 dosais

Cup measures are 200ml

1cup of idli rice

1cup of cleaned and grated tapioca

1/2 cup urad dhal

2 teaspoons fenugreek seeds

Salt to taste

Oil to drizzle over the dosais

Chutney of choice to serve with

How to go about:

Wash rice clean and soak for about 5 hours

Soak fenugreek seeds along with the rice.

Clean and soak the urad dhal for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the tapioca ready and grated.

Grind the soaked rice, dhal and tapioca to a smooth batter, add the salt and leave it overnight or 8 hours to ferment.

Place the dosai tawa on the stove and when it is hot , pour a ladle of batter and spread. Drizzle oil and cook. Flip over and cook well until both sides are well done.

Repeat the process with the rest of the batter.

Serve hot dosais with chutney of your choice or sambhar.

Beetroot Pesarattu

Normally I plan ahead the menu for the next day, and the next too. There is always a fall back plan, just in case. We cannot have simple cereals for breakfast and get on with the day. My husband needs something hot for his breakfast. Once a neighbour told me that she keeps idli/ dosai batter in her fridge and feels like she has enough savings in a bank account. I am not one who regularly grinds for and stock some batter too. That said, I keep wondering what other than a quickly put together upma to make. Despite all the planning and contingency plans, I end up waking up some morningss wondering what I might put on the table.
One such morning, I randomly pulled out my jar of mung lentils and washed and soaked with the idea of a pesarattu. I prefer the whole green gram pesarattu to the ones made with the husk removed dhal. However, that morning was quite a lazy start. So, it was the dhal washed and soaked. While the dhal was soaking, I had this sudden idea to add some vegetables in the dosai. The regular onions or greens were not appealing that day. Then I spotted a lone beetroot in my refrigerator. I quickly peeled and scraped the vegetable and boiled as whole until it was soft enough to grind along. Automatically more chillis and some ginger were put to grind too. The batter was ready in minutes and gave it about 30 minutes and made the dosais. Even with the regular batter, my husband prefers the soft dosai to the crisp ones. So this was a perfectly soft pesarattu with a nice pink colour. It went very well with some pickle,  sambhar and milagai podi.


Beetroot Pesarattu

Ingredients:
Makes 6 medium size pesarattus
1 cup (heaped) green gram/ mung dhal
1 medium beetroot
3 green chillis
2 dry red chillis
1/2 " piece ginger
Salt to taste
Oil for drizzling

Method:
Wash and soak the dhal along with the red and green chillis for about 20 minutes.
Peel the beetroot off its skin and boil in some water just until about soft.
Retain this water for grinding the batter.
Cut the boiled beetroot in small pieces that your grinder jar would grind without stress of load.
Drain the soaked dhal and grind all the ingredients other than the oil, to a batter that is not very smooth. Mix well.
Heat the skillet, add a few drops of oil and wipe the surface so the oil oil slightly.
Pour the batter and shape into a circular pesarattu. Drizzle more oil around the sides.

Cook for a few minutes until the side has been done well. Flip to the other side and cook. Remove from the skillet and serve hot with desired accompaniments.
Susan - The Well Seasoned Cook's My Legume Love Affair event is now being managed by Lisa as the main hostess. This month is the Edition 86 of the same event and it is being hosted by Shaheen of Allotment 2 Kitchen. This recipe, I would like to send, for the same.

Kambu Adai - Pearl Millet Adai

Millets have been a recent addition to my pantry. They are super easy to add to any recipes, can be powdered to flour, ground with other ingredients to a batter and cooked as such too.It is suggested that they have more nutrition than polished white rice. Millets are gluten free, rich in many minerals and above all they are quite delicious. They are interesting alternatives to more common grains like white rice.They sure fill you up with smaller quantities and thus good for diet watching too.
I have tried porridges, kheers, pongal, dosai and even paniyarams using millets. They taste good too.
At home, in India, I stocked up my supplies on millets. While the sorghum was well received cooked in any recipe, as my mother warned me that the pearl millet comes only second to any millet. To use this in crepes  may not be a choice that will be relished. However, she suggested that I make adai; with many more ingredients the taste and texture will certainly be better.
Pearl millet is a body coolant as it hydrates the system and thus a great choice to switch to in hot summer days. People who toil in the sun in open fields during the summer months, partake a porridge made with kambu, or carry rice kind of preparation with some raw shallots and buttermilk to survive the heat.

We tried the adai recipe she had noted down sometime and shared with me through a letter years ago. I have now cooked them a few times and have enjoyed with different side dishes.   

Kambu Adai

Ingredients:
To make 10 adais 

1/3 cup parboiled rice
3/4 cup kambu/ pearl millet
1/4 cup Channa dhal/ Bengal gram split
1/4 cup Thuvar dhal/ Pigeon peas split
1/4 cup shredded coconut
3 dry red chillis
3 fresh green chillis
1"piece ginger peeled
3 sprigs curry leaves, separated
Salt to taste
Oil to drizzle generously over the crepes


Method:
Wash the rice until clean and soak for a few hours.
Sprinkle water on the pearl millet and pulse it in a blender just once to dehusk it. If you have readily available clean kambu, just wash once or twice and soak separately for few hours.
Wash and soak both the dhals together and soak just for about 30 minutes.
Blend the soaked rice and kambu to somewhat smooth along with chillis, ginger and curry leaves.
Add the soaked dhals and shredded coconut. Grind only until you achieve a coarse batter.
Allow a few hours of fermentation.
Heat an iron skillet and pour a ladle of the batter, spread it in a circular crepe. Drizzle oil around the crepe. Cook until both sides are done crisp and golden.

Serve hot with chutney, sambhar or milagai podi. However, they are best relished with unrefined sugar and a blob of butter.

Sencholam Dosai

With a new found love for millets and while the enthusiasm lasted, I purchased a variety of millets, during my last visit home. I have been using them regularly and the possibilities seem endless. Those were days my mother and her maid were willing to experiment anything in her kitchen; my father's clients would bring for us some harvest from their farming lands and millets were cultivated widely around our area.
My mother often made these dosais and kuzhi paniyaarams and sometimes roasted, powdered and mixed in ghee porimaavu. When I was trying to cut down rice and switch partly to millets, I asked her for a few recipes. This dosai is one, she told me, that she made quite often; with the same batter, with a little more fermentation, it was possible to make kuzhipaniyaaram  with cholam. It works in my favour to grind one batter and make two dishes. Now with refrigeration, I hold the second dish off, for a day or two longer. It is so easy to grind the batter, whenever you are grinding for idli or dosa with rice and urad dhal, replace half the quantity of the par boiled rice with great millet/ shorgum which is sencholam in Tamil language.

I was picking up millets at my regular grocer's back home, in Namakkal, I asked for the ven cholam which is white and husk removed. The shop assistant, an elderly man who knows me for long, chided me and said while looking for healthy options, I should go totally, all the way. He packed me a kilo of the red variety of shorgum. The crepes and the kuzhipaniyaarams have a beautiful light red colour and that is quite appealing.

Sola Dosai - Jowar Dosa - Crepes with Great Millet/ Shorgum

Ingredients:
Makes 15 crepes
1 1./2 cup parboiled, idli rice
1 1/2 cup shorgum/ great millet/ sivappu cholam
3/4 cup urad dhal
2 teaspoons fenugreek seeds
Salt to taste
Oil for drizzling over the crepes

Method:
Wash and rinse thoroughly the rice and soak in water for about three hours.
At the same time, pick, wash in few changes of water the cholam. Soak separately in water for three hours.
Soak the fenugreek seeds separately.
Half an hour before grinding, wash and soak the urad dhal.
I use my wet grinder to grind the batter. You may use a heavy duty mixer grinder to grind also.
First, drop the fenugreek seeds in and grind them for a little while until they are very frothy.
Drain and add the urad dhal. Grind to a fluffy batter adding little water in increments. Transfer to a large mixing bowl.
Now grind the rice and cholam together adding sufficient water to a smooth batter.
Transfer to the mixing bowl and add the salt.
Mix well and allow the batter to ferment to about eight hours. Overnight fermentation is recommended.
Before preparing the dosai, give the fermented batter a thorough stir turning it well.
Heat an iron griddle or a non stick dosa tawa.
Pour the a ladle full of batter and spread it in a circle which is about 20 centimetres in diameter and 2 millimetres thick.
Drizzle a spoon of oil around the sides. Cook over a medium flame until the underside is done.
Flip to the other side, add oil if  necessary and cook this side also well. Remove from the griddle and place on the serving plates.

Serve hot with tomato and onion chutney and coriander chutney, milagai podi or plain coconut chutney. Choice is yours.
This makes a filling breakfast, a light night dinner choice and if made in small cute sizes can be packed in your kids' lunch boxes too.

Adai - A Basic Version and Kunukku with Left Over Batter

"You do not have a recipe for adai", my daughter told me over a skype chat. "I have, and here is the link", I said in my defense and sent her the link to paruppu adai. "Oh, but this is such a fancy one, I do not know most of those ingredients besides their name, isn't there a simple version, a normal adai?" Now, that was an eye-opener. I used to think it was not of much interest to read something so regular. But, did I even forget that the very idea of writing this blog initially, was to aid her to make her meals with ease and hassle free.
I make adai, as many of us do. I have thrown in ingredients on a whim, I have added every vegetable that would work in the mix and also specially ground extra batter to make the favourite snacks with left over batter. Recently, I even achieved making the ready to make powdered mix for my husband. Yet, I did not think, it was good enough to write a post. I think, now.
Adai is such a versatile dish that it can absorb any grain, millet and legumes you fancy and still turn out good. The simplest version is with rice and fewer legumes, spiced with chillis and if you like it, ginger and made in a thick crepe. Often a blob of butter and a spoon of powdered jaggery will suffice as accompaniments for this. Pair it with avial, you have eaten a heavy meal.
I like them thick and the batter patted by hand on the iron skillet, gingelly oil/ ghee smeared a little generously and cooked until golden on one side and just about turning golden on the other side after flipping. My husband likes his with the watered down batter made into crepes that are not so crisp. Thus the adai can be custom made to suit your preferences.

Adai

Makes 15 thick adais (or fewer adais and a left over batter for kunukku)
Ingredients:
1&1/2 cup idli rice
1/3 cup urad dhal
1/3 cup thuvar dhal
1/3 cup channa dhal
5 dry red chillis
3 fresh green chillis
1 and 1/2 inches piece ginger (optional)
Salt as required
Oil for cooking the crepes

Method:
Wash and rise well the rice and lentils clean. Soak them together in some water for about four hours.
Grind the soaked mix along with the chillis to a coarse and slightly thick batter. Add the salt and mix well.
You may adjust the water to get the desired consistency. If you plan to keep the batter for kunukku later, it is advisable to have a thick batter that has a dropping consistency. Keep aside the required quantity for the kunukku and adjust water to the rest of the batter.
Adai can be made soon after not waiting for the batter to ferment though personally I prefer that a wait for a few hours gives soft adais.
When ready to cook, place a heavy griddle/ skillet on fire. When the skillet is hot, scoop out a handful of batter and drop it on the skillet, pat it out in a thick circular crepe with your hand or spread using a ladle.
Smear a generous amount of oil around the adai. Also make small perforations in few spots using the sharp edge of the flipper and add some oil there. Cook the adai on a medium flame until the bottom side is golden. Flip to the other side and cook for a few minutes.

Serve hot with jaggery and butter or with a vegetable stew like avial.

Kunukku with left over batter:

Serves 2 people sumptuously for an evening snack.
Ingredients:
1 cup left over adai batter
2 tablespoons dry and coarsely ground rice (ground to semolina consistency)
Two sprigs curry leaves
1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves
1/3 cups chopped shallots or red onions (optional)
Oil for deep frying

To serve with:
Coriander and mint chutney/ coconut chutney
Tomato sauce

Method:
Add the rice powder to the adai batter and mix. Adjust the rice powder to make a dough that can be held with the hand and dropped in the oil.
Add the rest of the ingredients to the above.
Heat oil in a pan and when the oil is hot, take a chunk of batter, pinch out small portions and drop them gently in the oil.
Deep fry in small batches until they are fried until golden and done. Remove them from the oil with a slotted ladle, draining as much oil possible.
Transfer to a dish lined with kitchen tissues to drain anymore excess oil.
Repeat until entire batter is done.
Serve with any chutney and sauce.

Note:
Ideally for kunukku, a mix of raw rice and idli rice soaked and ground with the dhals in a 2:1 (rice:dhal) ratio works well.
I keep some stored Kunukku mix in my pantry to make kunukku for an occasional evening snack. Today's kunukku is a softer version of the earlier crisp snack.