Masala Dosa
It is 1991, Christmas time, and we are in Goa, a tiny
tropical island off the south-west coast of India. The sun is already blazing
and I come off the white sand beach for breakfast, not yet realizing that at the
age of 14 I have reached a defining moment of my life. I am about to be
introduced to my first dosa. I sit down and it is placed before me, an enormous
edible bowl, two feet across at its widest, golden brown and wafer thin, with a
pool of hot fragrant masala at the bottom and an arsenal of chutneys on the
side.
Dosas are thin pancakes, soft on
the inside and crispy on the outside. They are made of a finely-ground rice and
dal (lentil) mixture that is left to ferment until it takes on a yeasty, earthy
complexity – faintly similar to sourdough bread. Dosas are quite diverse
as a food type: they can be anywhere from bite-sized to massive (a traditional
family dosa should extend over both sides of the table); they can be paper thin
and silky smooth or thicker and more roughly hewn; and their shapes range from
the customary newspaper rollup, to a witch-hat cone, to the formidable open bowl
I was served in Goa. Dosas can be served plain or stuffed, and when wrapped
around a potato curry, they become masala dosas, the stuff of dreams.
Most Indian food we get in the States
comes from the north of the country, and consists largely of the rich vindaloos
and khormas we count among our favorite take-out dinners. It is a rare occasion
indeed to stumble upon the cuisine of south India, a mostly vegetarian mix
marked by deeply inventive uses of rice and legumes and a playful but fiery
blend of spice. If you live in Manhattan, you can hop in a cab and head to
Little India in and around 29th and Lexington, a bastion of south
Indian cooking. As it happens, I am lucky enough to live within three bocks of
a wonderful little south Indian café in Providence where I can pick up
dosas on a whim. Perhaps this has spoiled me. It wasn’t until this week
that I ever thought to make them
myself.
Preparations for dinner last
night began on Monday when I raided the Indian market for things like split urad
dal, gram dal, fenugreek, mustard seeds, tamarind paste and fresh curry leaves.
When I told the clerk what I was planning to make, he led me to the freezer and
pressed a package of pre-made masala dosas into my hands. “Very
good,” he persisted, “you try.” I declined politely, but not
without trepidation.
My angst increased
on Wednesday as the cooking process began and I realized I was heading into
uncharted territory. Cooking is like learning foreign languages. French,
Italian and Spanish share common routes and common methods. Learn one and you
have a point of reference for the others. None, however, will get you very far
in Hindi class.
The first step is to
rinse and soak the urad dal with the fenugreek, and separately, rinse and soak a
combination of white rice and parboiled rice. (Why the different rices, you
ask? I wondered the same thing. White rice is created when the outer husk of
the grain and the bran layers are removed. Parboiled rice is soaked, steamed,
dried and then milled to remove the outer hull. Some references say that using
parboiled rice in dosa batter aids in the fermentation. Others say that adding
white rice makes the batter smoother. After consulting about a hundred
different recipes, all with varying recommendations, I have come to the
conclusion that it doesn’t really matter. If anyone knows differently,
please let me know. I used all Uncle Ben’s –
parboiled.)
After soaking for six hours,
the rice and dal were ready to be ground (separately) and mixed (together).
Traditionally, this would be done by hand with a great stone mortar and pestle.
I opted for my handy little Cuisinart, thinking I would whip up creamy dosa
batter in no time. Ha! Two hours and countless batches later, I had a
new-found respect for old-fashioned elbow grease. I also had more potentially
recipe-threatening questions. How smooth does the batter really need to be?
How thin? Some recipes called for crepe-like batter, others insisted on calling
it paste. My results were mostly smooth, somewhat frothy, and were spotted like
tapioca with tiny nuggets of rice. I shrugged and let them go.
I left my batter to ferment in the
warmest spot of the house and went to bed. Yesterday morning there was not much
to report. I went to work. When I got home there was still no visible
difference, but when I touched it, it gave way like a very light risen dough.
My heart leapt.
I made the masala,
which is basically roughly mashed potatoes flavored with an intoxicating mixture
of onions, green chilis, fresh ginger, mustard seeds, toasted gram dal (stronger
in taste than most lentils with a sweet aroma and flavor), chili powder,
turmeric, cilantro, and the KEY ingredient: fresh curry leaves. In my mind,
curry leaves are the essence of south Indian cuisine. Their flavor is hard to
pinpoint, but it is slightly smoky, slightly citrus, and has nothing whatsoever
in common with curry powder.
I made a
side of coconut chutney by blending grated coconut with tamarind paste, toasted
dal and red chilis. It wasn’t what I expected, but then, little was. I
put it aside.
In honor of my
sister’s joining us for dinner, I also made a batch of mango lassi –
her favorite. Lassi is tangy-sweet yogurt drink, and one of the only things in
India that will cool and soothe a burning palate. I blended yogurt, water,
milk, and mangos with a squeeze of lemon juice and a dash of cardamom. It was
7, and about time for dinner.
I heated
some ghee (clarified butter) in a nonstick pan, poured in some batter, and
following the advice of many, spread it outward with the back of a spoon in
concentric circles. It clumped and broke apart and stuck miserably to the pan
(yes – the nonstick, greased pan). The second attempt faired little
better. In the third attempt, I was able to keep a quasi-pancake-looking-thing
together enough to flip, and added a dollop of masala in the middle. It still
fell apart, but we were making progress. Betsy arrived and gave me much-needed
moral encouragement. Dosas four through six started coming together, but were
ugly as sin. For dosa number seven, I tried something new. Instead of flipping
it, I covered the pan and let it steam through. I added a scoop of masala to
the middle, and carefully lifted and folded the dosa around it. Eureka! The
under side came up browned and crisp, and the top-side stayed soft. They hung
together, they looked the part.
Better
yet, they were delicious, and actually quite close to what I had hoped. Our
dosas offered the appealing contrasts of texture (crisp and rough exterior
around soft interior), flavor (spicy masala against yeasty dosa against
salty-sweet chutney) and temperature (sizzling hot cooled by coconut). We tore
into them with our fingers, as any self-respecting dosa-eater would. We feasted
until only the ugliest of the ugly dosas were left, and cooled our palates with
mango lassi. Romba ruchiya irukku. (Translation: Yum.)
Posted: Fri - April 9, 2004 at 12:30 PM