living in the woods and making stuff

Heli and I made dosas this morning. She has been wanting to make them for a while, so when I came up to visit, I brought a huge jar of urad dal from my mom. It is a type of “peeled” dal.

Last night we soaked a cup of dal and a cup of rice in separate dishes. First thing this morning we ground the rice and dal.

After they were ground (the dal more finely than the rice), we mixed them together and set them out to ferment for an hour.

Meanwhile, we got the potatoes started. (For the masala part of the dish…)

We boiled potatoes, and then added them to a mixture of oil, onions, spices, and hot pepper. While they cooked, we started working on the dosas.

Heli and I have never made dosas before. Just a disclaimer. So we didn’t have our hopes set too high for the success of our “paper-thin” rice and dal pancakes. Attempt one below…

Ok…so we thinned the batter considerably, tried different utensils, switched to silicone, and then back to the stainless steel, played around with the heat until we found the optimal temperature and when we were suitably satisfied with the cooking conditions, we had made enough dosas…

So We had masala dosas, but more like potatoes wrapped in nice little scraps of dough. They tasted good though!

A finished dosa with potatoes, cucumber carrot raita, and home-made lemon pickle.