The other night I was going to be eating solo, so I was planning on just throwing something quick together, but then somehow I ended up making Mysore dosa with a new kind of sambhar! It started because I looked in the freezer to see if we had any frozen Indian food and saw the new Madras tomato chutney the Indian store owner recommended. We had a box of dosa in the cupboard and I’ve been curious to find a new sambhar recipe for a while, so why not give it a go?
My favorite kind of dosa is a Mysore dosa which includes red chutney therefore that is what I made.
Dosa is served with sambar (a lentil soup), coconut chutney, and sometimes tomato chutney. Here is the easy sambar recipe I made tonight and here is a more complex sambar for when you have a little more time. The first uses a pressure cooker to do the bulk of the work and ready made sambar powder. The 2nd is more labor intensive with grinding and adding things at different stages.
I have tried and failed to cook a dosa in the past. They usually come out very messy and I can’t get them spread nicely. But tonight I think I got it sorta right! This is weird, but because we don’t have a flat ladle for spreading the batter, I used a small tadka pan because it had a flat bottom. They are still a little thicker than I would like, but still smooth and together. Yay!
The red chutney is adapted from Yummy Tummy’s recipe.
Red Chutney
1 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon channa dal
1 tablespoon urad dal
1 big garlic clove cut into chunks
1/4 cup desiccated coconut
1 teaspoon kashmiri chili powder
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon natural tamarind paste
1 teaspoon jaggery
Salt
- Heat oil in a medium skillet.
- Add channa dal, urad dal and garlic and cook over medium heat until the dal is toasty and the garlic is cooked.
- Add the coconut and chili powders and cook until another minute or so.
- Add the tamarind, jaggery and salt and stir.
- Cook a little and then grind with a little water in a small food processor, grinder or coffee grinder.
Mysore Dosa
but you can use store bought batter or make your own)Red chutney
- On a cold dosa pan or other big flat skillet pour a ladle of dosa batter and spread it around in a circular pattern to make it thin.
- Drizzle with oil around the edges.
- Spread a little Mysore masala over the whole dosa and cook until the dosa is crisp.
- Add a little bit of the raw onions, fold and serve with coconut chutney, tomato chutney, sambar, or a combination of these.