Urad - Moong Dosa/ Udid-Mooga Polo

Recently I wrote a brief note on upvasa khana. This recipe is my first contribution to that new section.


I prepared this dosa last month on Ekadashi day. This is a simple dosa to prepare as the batter does not need fermenting. Serve it with butter or homemade fresh "loni" with any simple chutney. 

Surnali / Dosa

Surnali is a very simple dosa. With just very few ingredients you can have spongy dosas for breakfast. I feel this is a very versatile batter. We can add jaggery and make sweet dosas or just make regular ones and serve with chutney. You can even add cucumber or magge (mangalore sautekayi) to it. If you are adding cucumber it is better to avoid adding poha. Adding both will make the dosa too soft.

Magge is a special cucumber which is called as Mangalore Sautekayi in Bangalore. I am not sure if this is used across India or if this is a South Indian specific vegetable. I remember my Uncle growing this in his farm. This has a longer shelf life and we use this only in different types of gravy and dosas. We do not eat this raw.

Biscuit Roti/ Stuffed Poori

Its been over a year I haven't blogged at all. After Stuti is born I really never looked into blogging and also cooking in that matter. I prepare something simple and quick dishes whenever I find time only to avoid eating food from outside. 

Last week was my husband's birthday and I decided to prepare Biscuit Roti for breakfast. Biscuit roti is stuffed poori. The stuffing I have mentioned below is how I follow. You can make variations to it according to your liking. One of my friend said she makes toor dal stuffing which I am yet to try. Last time when we had been to Mangalore we had Biscuit Roti from famous "Balli" on carstreet and my husband became an instant fan of it. My preparation surely did not taste as wonderful as Mangalore ones but was good.

Steamed Rice Patties/ Ramdhan

When I first heard the word "ramdhan" from my husband I really didnt know what does this mean. When he explained me how to prepare this I realised we call this as "sanan". Luckily we found banana leaf during Ganesha Festival in Coconut Hill (Indian Grocery Store).The ingredients are very similar to idly but what makes this special is the aroma of banana leaf. This goes best with chutney.

Rice Flour Dosa/ Mumbri

Mumbri is very similar to Akki Rotti. My grand mom used to prepare this a lot of time. The main ingredient for this dish is loni or makhan and banana leaf. I do not get loni here and at times I wont even have banana leaf. I still go ahead and prepare this on a cast iron frying pan. However this tastes best only when it is fried by covering banana leaves.

We at home usually eat this with loni or ghee and coconut chutney.

Steamed Rice Patties with Coconut Stuffing/Ghatti

Ghatti is something very similar to patholi but it is not sweet. I learnt this from my aunt. I have never seen anyone else preparing this and even my hubby was surprised to hear word "ghatti". He said he never had this before. This is usually served with coconut oil on it. But I prepared a very spicy asafoetida chutney.


Ingredients:
4-5 large pieces of banana leaves (for steaming)
1 cup rice
1 1/2 cup grated coconut
Salt

Method:
Soak rice in water for 3-4 hours.
Drain the water and grind this with 1/2 cup of grated coconut. This should be a thick paste and not watery like dosa batter. Add salt to taste.
Place the cut banana leaves on a hot stove. This will make the leaves soft and easy to fold.
Spread the batter on banana leaves and place remaining grated coconut in the middle.
Fold this and steam it for 15 minutes in a pressure cooker without whistles.
Serve hot with coconut oil.



Serves: 2
Preparation Time: 25 mins (excludes soaking time)



Note: The main ingredient is banana leaves without which this dish is incomplete. The aroma of banana leaf make this very tasty and special.

Banana Roti

My grandmother had very unique recipes like sugar cane juice roti, banana roti, papad sambar and many more. She had few specific items prepared during particular fest or season in a year. She never used to let me go without tasting all the food which was prepared at home. This is one among those special recipes which reminds me of those good old days terribly.


Ingredients:
1 ripe large banana
1 tea spoon sugar
1 tea spoon oil
3 large table spoons rice flour
2 large table spoons maida
1/2 luke warm water (if required)

Method:
Mash the banana.
Knead a dough (just like chapathi) with mashed banana, rice flour, maida, salt, sugar and oil. If banana is well ripe you will not need water, else just add a little luke warm water for dough.
Make small balls and roll them.
Fry it on hot tava.
Serve hot with sabji or chutney.

Serves: 2
Preparation Time: 20-25 mins

Note: This roti is sweet. If you do not like sweet, you can skip sugar and this needs to be fried dry without ghee or butter.

Urad - Rava Dosa

This is surely not an authentic rava dosa. Since I always have urad batter ready, I try preparing dosas with different flour and also rava. This dosa becomes slightly thicker than usual urad dosa.


Ingredients:
1/2 cup urad
1/4 cup fine sooji
salt
ghee to fry

Method:
Soak urad for 2 hours and make a smooth batter in a grinder.
Add sooji and salt to this batter.
Spread on a hot tava and fry with ghee.
Serve with chutney or sabji.

Serves: 2
Preparation Time: 10 mins (does not include soaking time)

Urad - Rice Flour Dosa

Urad dosa is a very common breakfast at our home. We atleast have it once a week. Acutally in India, we use urad and rice. But since my belnder doesnt grind rice into a smooth paste, I started preparing this with rice flour.


Ingredients:
1 cup urad
3 table spoon rice flour
1 cup water
salt to taste
ghee, oil or butter to fry

Method:
Soak urad in water for couple of hours.
Grind this into a smooth batter and let it ferment for 8-10 hours (I prefer overnight).
Add rice flour and salt to urad batter (do not make it too watery)
Spread this on a hot tava and roast it with ghee, oil or butter depending upon your choice.
Serve it hot with coconut chutney or any sabji.

Serves: 3
Preparation Time: 15 mins (this does not include soaking and fermenting hours)

Buns with Poha

Buns reminds me of my MGM hostel days. This used to be our evening snacks atleast once a week and all of my friends including me used to curse the chef for preparing yucky buns. This is definitely a good snacker, but I used to really really hate the way it used to be prepared in hostel...thick and dark big buns. Anyways I once again developed taste for these after my marriage. We always have these with poha.


Buns:
Ingredients:
1 big ripe banana
2 cup maida or all purpose flour
1 tea spoon sugar (avoid this if you dont like sweet)
1 table spoon oil
salt
oil for deep frying

Method:
Make a dough with banana, sugar, salt, oil and maida. If the banana is well ripe you will not need water, else add couple of spoons of water.
Make small balls and roll it. Let these be slightly thicker than puri.
Heat oil and deep fry until dark brown.

Serves: 2
Preparation Time: 30 mins


Poha:
Ingredients:
2 table spoon sambar powder
3 tea spoons sugar
pinch of salt
1/4 cup grated coconut
2 cup thin poha

Seasoning:
1 tea spoon oil
curry leaves
mustard seeds
3 red chillies

Method:
Do not wash poha. Since it is thin poha, washing it will make it sticky.
In a mixing bowl, mix all the above ingredients except for seasoning.
In a small pan, heat oil.
Add curry leaves, mustard seeds and chillies.
Pour this into poha mixture and mix it again.

Serves: 2
Preparation Time: 15 mins

Note: Buns can be eaten with coriander chutney and this poha goes well with simple upma too.