Recipe: Sunita's No-Oil Mung Dosa

Dosa is often tastiest when made using a dal-rice batter and frying it crispy in plenty of ghee.

That's not to say that dosas made without heavy amounts of rice and ghee can't taste rather delicious too and make for nutritious light breakfasts.

Sunita Harisinghani uses fermented husked yellow mung batter for her No-Oil Mung Dal Dosas and they turn out superb, according to her photographer son Hitesh.

Sunita cooks a wonderful selection of dishes from her native Mangalore and also has an enormous gamut of Sindhi, Maharashtrian and north Indian specialties.

No-Oil Mung Dal Dosas

Servings: 6-8 dosas

Ingredients

• 200 gm husked yellow mung dal
• 1 tbsp urad dal
• ½ tbsp rice
• ½-inch piece ginger 
• 2-3 green chillies
• ½ tsp jeera or cumin seeds
• Water
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 tomato, chopped
• Handful fresh green dhania or coriander leaves or cilantro, chopped
• Pinch hing or asafoetida
• Salt to taste, about 1 tsp

Method

• Soak the mung dal, urad dal, rice for 3-4 hours in water and drain.
• Grind the soaked dals, rice, ginger, green chillies, jeera together with little water; enough to have dosa batter consistency.
  Let it ferment overnight.
• The following day add the salt, hing to the batter and mix.
  Heat a frying pan or non-stick dosa tawa over medium heat and pour in a ladle of batter and spread it out into a dosa.
  Simultaneously add the chopped onions, tomatoes, coriander leaves and let it fry for a minute or two.
  Flip and cook the dosa on the other side too.
• Repeat for the rest of the batter
• Serve hot with coconut chutney.

Editor's Note: You can also add a little oil while frying.

To make coconut chutney from scratch, use Mayur Sanap's coconut chutney recipe.
If you are willing to be experimental, try any of these: Spice It Up: 11 Chutney Recipes.

Sunita Harisinghani lives in Navi Mumbai.

• REDIFF FOOD