A lifelong love affair with Dosa
And, why I never want to go back to a life of Gits again.
In this story:
When we moved to NZ, suddenly, Dosa’s stopped being a part of my life
As a 16-year-old Indian living in Auckland in the early 2000s, I had my peace with the fact that my mother would never put coriander in our food again - there was no way she was paying $3 for a bunch. What I couldn't accept was that dosa, originally the staple food of South India but also my favourite after-school snack would no longer be a regular part of my life.
Mum tried making up for it by bringing home a dusty cardboard box of Gits Dosa Mix from the not-so-local Indian shop. But we gave up quickly because the dosa's that box made (okay, I made) would stick to the pan and look like scrambled eggs that had a fracture.
I spent many wintry Auckland mornings with my eyes closed, imagining I was biting into a crispy golden dosa stuffed with a delicious potato and onion sabzi, grated cheese spilling out of the sides.
And every time we travelled back to India, guess what most of my meals would be? Dosa.
When I'm arguing with my husband, I often tell him that the only reason I moved from Auckland to his childhood home in Matunga, Mumbai was because it's the dosa mecca of Mumbai.
100-year-old Udipi restaurants
Nestled in the back streets near his home are 100-year-old Udipi restaurants that serve some of the best dosas in Mumbai. I was to learn later that they were absolutely not a match for the Ghee Roast dosa you get in Coimbatore and Chennai but still, ah-mazing!
Our weekday ritual as a couple was to go for a walk to Five Gardens once the sweltering Mumbai sun started its downward journey at 5.30. Walk for 30 minutes to the dosa place and proceed to eat all the calories and more back by sharing a Rava Masala Dosa (always cut in half as soon as it arrives to make sure we both got an absolute equal share).
Such is their popularity that people line up at Madras Cafe and Ram Ashraya at 6am on a Saturday morning. There's no long lingering brunch to be had here.
You will often find strangers squeezed together on a table, silently eating their dosa's. These restaurants don't even have a written menu. You're expected to know what you want by the time you get to your table or choose from the five or six dishes the server chooses to rattle off.
When my husband and I decided that we were migrating back to New Zealand I went into a kind of dosa frenzy. Three months before we left, I would have my morning shower and then head to Ram Ashraya by myself.
I'd order myself my favourite Podi Ghee Roast dosa, three plates one after another and then sip on some filter coffee. It's the kind of meditation I recommend everyone do.
A week before I left Mumbai, I accepted that I had to learn how to make dosa at home. There was no way I would return to a life of Gits again. Theoretically, making dosa at home is simple because all you need is black lentils and rice in a 1:2 ratio. Though my adventure didn't start off well because I bought the wrong kind of lentil - the unhusked black urad rather than its pakeha cousin - and all our dosa's were dark grey. Another time, I was prodding them with my spatula and they stuck to the pan. Yet another time, I left the batter inside a cold oven and the batter didn't quite ferment.
What's worked in my favour is that my children love dosas just as much as me. And, that they are young enough to eat all my failed experiments.
Udipi and the dosa story
Udipi, a small place in Karnataka, India is the original home of the Masala Dosa. Many believe that it was invented in the process of a Brahmin Adiga (cook) trying to get on the wild side. Since Brahmins weren’t allowed alcohol, he tried to ferment his own with rice. It did not work. So, he poured it out on a pan and made a crêpe out of it. Dosha in Kannada means “sin” hence the name given to his attempt at sinning with alcohol was Dosha, later turned to dosa.
As the Shetty, Nayak and other business-minded communities of South India moved out of Mangalore they took their cuisine with them and today these restaurants are in every nook and corner of Mumbai.
Traditionally dosa was made with fermented rice though you can also make a faster crispier version with semolina. A newer trend has been making dosa batter with millet flour as it’s has a high iron content. The addition of grated cheese to dosa is a Mumbai thing that most South Indians will frown upon. They prefer their Ghee Roast which is a thinner, crispier dosa lined with ghee.
Me? I don’t discriminate and eat all kinds of dosas.
Making dosa at home
Ingredients
200 gm rice
100 gm split and skinned black lentils (white urad dal)
2 tsp salt
350-400 ml water
Optional: 1/2 tsp coriander powder, 1/2 tsp cumin powder
Ghee (even better if it’s Dolly Mumma Spiced Ghee)
Method
Soak the rice and the urad dal in separate bowls for 4-6 hours
Rinse them completely removing the foamy water that occurs as a result of the dal/rice soaking
Using some water, grind both the rice and dal separately before mixing them together.
Cover and leave in a warm place overnight. The top of your boiler or inside a cold oven is a great place.
In the morning, add in the salt and spices and mix well. We add the salt later because otherwise, it interferes with the fermentation process.
In a flat pan, add a ladle of batter in the centre and move the ladle in concentric circles to make a thin crepe.
When bubbles form on the surface, and the dosa lifts from the edges, add a bit of ghee in the centre.
Put in your choice of stuffings - cheese, spiced potatoes or leftover roast meat.
Fold over and flip over and serve hot along with coconut chutney.