Recipe - Tavalai Dosai

One half cup Each moong (mung beans),
moong dal, channa dal, toor
dal
3 Dried red round chillies
(about the size of marbles)
Salt to taste
One fourth cup Thick sour yoghurt
2 tablespoon Oil
1 teaspoon Black mustard seed
1 Dried red round chillie
Oil for frying

I want to post some Gujerati recipes, since it's a wonderful cuisine which
is very underrepresented in restaurants, even in India but my recipes
are mostly of the "little of this and a pinch of that" variety. I'll fix
them, but meanwhile, this is a Tamil recipe from a friend which qualifies
as comfort food in my opinion: it makes a thick, flyingsaucershaped crisp
patty, which can be a substantial snack or part of a meal. Although it's
called a dosai, it's not the usual kind which resembles a crepe. It's
cooked in a wokshaped pan, but you could probably use a griddle as well.
Extra batter can be refrigerated for a couple of days.

Soak the dals and the dried red chillies overnight. Drain and reserve the
chillies. Grind the dals briefly in a blender without adding water. Do not
grind to a paste there should be fine uniform grains. Grind the chillies
to a paste separately and add them to the ground dals along with salt and
yoghurt. Mix well. Keep this mix in a warm place for about six hours, so
that it becomes slightly sour. Heat 2 tblsp. oil until it's quite hot, add
the mustard seed and red chillie. Fry until the mustard seeds jump, and add
them to the dal batter. Put about 1 tblsp. oil in a wokshaped pan, turn to
coat the pan with oil, and pour in some of the batter it should be about
1/2" thick in the center. Smooth the top of the batter with a spoon, cover
with a tight lid, and cook over a slow flame for about 811 minutes, until
a dark brown crust forms on the bottom. Turn the dosai very carefully, add
a little oil underneath, and cook again until a dark crust forms on the
bottom. Posted to FOODWINE Digest 03 Apr 97 by Nancy Gandhi
gandhi@GIASMD01.VSNL.NET.IN on Apr 4, 1997