My mother is very interested in my blogging themes and enthusiastically keeps a look out for dishes that fit my theme of the month. Though she prefers me cooking and blogging about more traditional Indian dishes instead of ‘baking bread all the time’, she still supports my endeavour in a big way. She saw this recipe on a Tamil cookery show and promptly wrote it down to tell me. 

Usually dosa is made with skinless black gram but this dosa is made with the whole black gram which is the same one used to make dal makhni. Another interesting feature was that the black gram did not have to be soaked in order to make the dosa. I was intrigued when I heard that and thought I should give it a shot. For the past few weeks I am experimenting with grinding my idli / dosa batter in a mixer rather than the wet grinder. One, it is easier to clean and can also be used for smaller quantities as compared to the grinder. Though I am not completely pleased with the idli results from such an endeavour, the dosa works beautifully. So I used a mixer for this recipe too and it turned out quite nice. 

This dosa is also accompanied by a black gram podi / dry chutney powder which is to be mixed with oil and spread on the dosa. The combination is fantastic and I would recommend you try the two together instead of having this dosa with a regular red chilly lentil powder.

Protein – Black gram

Recipe from Revathi Sankaran’s TV show

Makes 10-12 dosas

WHAT WE NEED

For the Dosa 

Idli rice                     3 cups

Raw rice                    1 cup

Black gram                1 cup

Fenugreek seeds       1 tsp

For the chutney podi

Black gram                 1/4 cup

Bengal gram               1 tbsp

Dried red chillies       5-6 

Salt

WHAT TO DO

For the dosa

• Soak the idli rice and raw rice together and the fenugreek seeds in a separate vessel for 6 hours or overnight
• Wash the black gram well and add it to a mixer / blender
• Grind it well to a near smooth paste and set aside
• Drain the water from the rice and add to the blender
• Add the fenugreek seeds and salt and grind to a smooth paste
• Mix the ground black gram and the rice and set aside to ferment for 6-8 hours depending on the weather
• If the weather is chilly and you are not sure the batter will ferment then wrap the vessel with a thick towel and place it on top of the refrigerator. The heat from the refrigerator will help fermenting.
• Once the batter has fermented, add some water and salt, if needed.
• Heat a tava
• Pour a ladle full of batter on the tava and spread it in a circular motion
• Add few drops of oil at the edges of the dosa and let it cook for 20-30 seconds on medium high
• Gently release the dosa from the tava with a steel spatula and turn it over on the other side
• Let it cook for 10-20 seconds on low
• Take out the dosa from the tava
• Repeat the same procedure till all the dosas you need are made
• Enjoy with the chutney powder

For the chutney powder

• Dry roast the black gram, bengal gram and dried red chillies in a pan individually and set aside to cool
• Add all the ingredients with salt to a blender 
• Blend to a coarse powder 
• Once the dosa is made, mix the chutney powder with a little gingely oil and apply on the dosa
• Enjoy!

  This is my post for the Mega Marathon under the theme, ‘Protein Rich Dishes’. 

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 80