Before You Start
Two separate skills meet on one plate when you make masala dosa. One is the fermented batter, which is poured thin onto a hot griddle and cooked until it crackles, and the other is a soft potato mixture, lightly spiced, that gets tucked inside. Neither is difficult by itself. The batter, however, asks for a day of forethought, because it has to be soaked, ground and left to ferment before it behaves on the griddle, and spreading a dosa thin and even takes a few attempts to get right. The potato side is the easy one, ready in about a quarter of an hour and tolerant of small changes.
It is the potato that earns the name, since a dosa served without it is just a dosa, or a sada dosa. Masala in this context describes a gentle seasoning of turmeric and mustard seed, and has nothing to do with fire. A well-made filling is soft-spoken, and that restraint is one reason the dish suits an everyday breakfast as comfortably as it suits a restaurant table.
Where It Comes From
The dosa family is old and spread across the whole of South India; fermented pancakes of rice and lentils are mentioned in writing from the region several centuries back. Masala dosa proper, meaning a dosa rolled around turmeric-tinged potato, is tied most closely to Udupi on the Karnataka coast and to the Udupi-style restaurants that took it first through the south and then across the country, starting around the end of the nineteenth century and gathering pace in the early twentieth. Tamil Nadu has a dosa tradition just as old and just as valid, with its own habits about batter proportions and thickness, so it would be unfair to give either state credit for inventing the dosa as such. The potato and the standard restaurant form, a large thin dosa folded into a cone or half-moon and brought with coconut chutney and sambar, are better attributed to the Udupi hotel tradition, which writers on South Indian food describe as the force that moved a household batter dish into the worldwide favourite it is now.
How to Make It
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Prep
Soak the rice and the dal apart
Wash the rice in one bowl and the urad dal in another, changing the water until it comes away nearly clear, and then submerge each in generous fresh water, dropping the fenugreek in with the dal. Both want four to six hours of soaking, or a whole night when the kitchen is cool. Because dal turns soft sooner than rice, the two are ground one after the other and not together.
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Prep
Grind into a thick, smooth batter
Drain the dal and grind it first, along with the poha if you are using any, trickling in water bit by bit until the mass turns pale, thick and puffy. Allow longer for this than you expect, since a wet grinder needs a quarter of an hour or more. Next grind the rice on its own, leaving it a little coarser and grainy. Scrape both into one large container, add the salt, and mix with your hand, which works air into the batter.
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Prep
Let it ferment until it has visibly risen
Rest the batter, loosely covered, in a warm corner for eight to twelve hours, and give it longer if the climate is cold. You will know it is ready when the volume has about doubled, small bubbles are visible all through, and the aroma is mildly sour and not harsh or boozy. Resist the urge to shortcut this stage with extra warmth, because the souring is where the tang comes from and it is also why the finished dosa can crisp.
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Prep
Cook the potato mixture
Heat the oil in a wide pan and add the mustard seeds, waiting for them to crackle. Next in go the chana dal, urad dal, curry leaves and red chilli, cooked briefly, only until the little dals take on a pale golden colour. Add the sliced onion, green chillies and ginger, and keep cooking about five minutes, until the onion has gone soft and see-through.
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Cook
Add turmeric and the mashed potato
Sprinkle in the turmeric, tip in the mashed potato with the water and work it all into a soft, bright yellow mass that holds together. If it seems dry, add a little more water. Salt it, let it bubble gently for two or three minutes so the flavours blend, then stir through the coriander. Keep the pan covered off the heat so the filling stays warm.
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Cook
Get the griddle ready
Put the tawa over medium-high heat and check it with a few water drops, which ought to hiss and disappear nearly instantly. Smear a thin coat of oil across the surface using a folded cloth or a halved onion; the onion trick also keeps the batter from sticking as it cooks.
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Cook
Spread in one quick spiral
Pour a ladleful in the centre of the hot tawa and sweep it outward in a single spiral, working from the middle to the rim with the flat underside of the ladle. Do this fast, before the batter firms up. The aim is a thin, uniform sheet, thinner than a pancake, as the thickness determines whether you get a crisp dosa or a soft, doughy one.
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Cook
Oil the edges and wait for them to lift
Trickle a little oil or ghee over the dosa and round its rim. Leave it undisturbed on medium-high heat until the bottom has turned golden-brown and the rim starts peeling up from the pan unaided, which takes two to three minutes. A dosa made from well-fermented batter and spread properly never needs turning over.
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Serve
Fill, fold and bring to the table
Lay a stripe of warm potato across the middle, or over half the dosa, and then fold it over into a half-moon or roll it up. Take it to the table straight away with coconut chutney and sambar. A dosa starts to lose its snap soon after it hits the plate, so it should not wait.
Swaps That Work
Idli rice, or any parboiled short-grain variety, is the right choice. Basmati and similar long, aromatic grains grind and ferment differently and give a gummy batter, so they are best avoided. If your batter has a thin flavour, a small handful of cooked rice or extra poha in the grinder can lift crispness. Instant dosa mixes exist and make a decent weeknight shortcut, though both the texture and the tang depart noticeably from a properly fermented batter. Ready-made dosa batter, whether frozen or from the fridge of a South Indian grocer, is widely used and perfectly acceptable in place of homemade.
Turning the Heat Up or Down
The potato for masala dosa is gentle by tradition, and the little heat it carries originates in the green and dried red chillies, which are easy to scale. To tone it down further, omit the dried chilli and use just a thin sliver of green, leaving the mustard seeds, curry leaves and turmeric to do the flavouring. To turn it up, add one more slit green chilli, or a pinch of red chilli powder at the same time as the turmeric, and think about putting a hotter tomato or red chilli chutney on the table in preference to overspicing the filling, whose role is to be the soft element on the plate.
Where Cooks Go Wrong
Batter that has not fermented enough is the leading cause of disappointment, typically because the kitchen was cold or the wait was cut short, and it gives a dosa that tastes flat and refuses to crisp however hot the griddle. The griddle temperature is the second trap. When it is too cool, the batter will not spread thinly or crisp, and when it is too hot, the batter sets before the ladle can move it, leaving a thick, ragged dosa. Pouring too much oil into the filling pan turns the potato greasy instead of well seasoned, and failing to salt the batter itself, in the belief that the filling will cover for it, leaves the dosa bland by itself. Last, turning or poking the dosa early tears it, so give it time until the rim lifts of its own accord.
Keeping and Warming Up Leftovers
To keep: Once fermented, the batter can sit in the refrigerator for three or four days, growing sourer with time; before using it, stir and thin it with a splash of water, since cold thickens it. Portions can also go in the freezer for up to a month. The cooked potato mixture lasts two days in a closed container in the refrigerator. Finished dosas are a poor candidate for storing and should always be made to order.
To warm up: Warm leftover filling in a pan on low heat, adding a spoonful of water to loosen it, or microwave it in short bursts, stirring between each. A dosa that has already been cooked will not return to crisp. Rewarming on a tawa heats it through but it stays pliant and never recovers its crackle, so make only as many as will be eaten immediately and keep the remaining batter for another meal.
Safe Handling
A batter left to ferment at room temperature within the time given is safe, since the acidity builds quickly enough to outrun spoilage organisms. After that it belongs in the refrigerator, not on the counter indefinitely, particularly in hot weather, when over-fermentation can make it sharply sour and eventually unsafe to eat. Boiled potatoes for the filling should be chilled soon after boiling if they are not going into the pan right away, because cooked potato kept at room temperature for long is a known setting for bacterial growth. No deep-frying is involved in this dish, so the only oil advice is not to let the tawa oil smoke and burn repeatedly during one session; wipe the surface and put down fresh oil between dosas instead of letting charred residue accumulate.
Where to Read More
- K.T. Achaya, "Indian Food: A Historical Companion" (Oxford University Press) — on the history of fermented rice-and-lentil batter dishes in South India.
- Colleen Taylor Sen, "Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India" (Reaktion Books) — on the Udupi hotel tradition and its role in standardising and spreading masala dosa.