Masala dosa recipe / Dosa recipe / How to make masala dosa

Hi friends ! This weekend , I made one of my favorite South Indian dishes which is Masala dosa. I don't know why but I love to make dosa at home even though making dosa is a long process.

Masala dosa is my family's favorite that is why I started making dosa batter at home rather than store bought .

Earlier , making dosa seems very time taking process to me but nowadays , I always ready to make dosas . This way , I improve myself in this art and every time I learn something.
Masala dosa is the combination of plain dosa and potato filling which is called masala. The dosa without potato filling is called plain dosa.
Whenever I make dosa/idli batter at home , first I make idlis because fresh batter makes soft and smooth idlis . Then I use leftover batter for making plain dosa and masala dosa by adding little water to it . Even we can make utthapam from this batter.

In this post I am going to share the whole process for making masala dosa .
This process consists of 3 stages:

• Making dosa batter
• Making  potato filling or masala
• Making  masala dosa

Making dosa batter

Ingredients

• 3 cup rice
• 1 cup skinned urad dal
• 1 cup poha
• 1/2 tsp Fenugreek seeds or methi

Method

Wash and clean the rice until you get clean water. Soak the rice in a large bowl of water for overnight   or 6 hours.

 Rinse and clean the urad dal . Soak the dal with fenugreek seeds in another bowl of water for overnight or 6 hours. Fenugreek seeds help in fermentation.

Wash and clean the poha . Sprinkle some water on it and cover the poha with a plate for just 1 hour before grinding the batter. Poha makes the dosa crispy and give nice golden color.

Wet grinder is best for making idli/dosa batter but food processor and our mixie work well too. Even I  use mixie for grinding the batter.

Add dal and fenugreek seed into the grinder and grind it. If it seems dry , you can use 1-2 tbsp  water while grinding . The urad dal batter should be creamy , fluffy and should not be watery. Grinding the dal may take around 15-20 mins.

Pour this batter in a large preferably stainless steel bowl. Glass bowl works well.

Add Drained rice and poha into the same grinder In which we grounded the dal. 
Grind the rice and poha with 1 or 2 tbsp water . Keep adding 1 tbsp water in between grinding . When I made dosa batter for first time , my batter got watery because I added too much water in starting . Touch the batter with your finger, if you feel the grain , it means you need to grind it more by little water. The batter should be smooth, creamy and neither thick nor watery. This grinding may take 15-20 min or depending on the amount of soaked rice and dal.

Pour this batter to urad dal batter into the same bowl . 
Mix very well. I personally prefer mixing batter by hands because this way helps to mix the batter properly.
Give the batter a good mix.cover the bowl with a lid and keep the bowl on kitchen counter overnight for fermentation. In abroad where winters are harsh, you can keep batter in oven with the light on.
If you don't have light in oven, just heat up your oven at 250 F for 5 min , switch off the oven and 
place the bowl in oven for overnight .

After 8-10 hours , check the batter ,it should be frothy and doubles in its original amount .If it is not , you can leave it little longer.

So this is the basic idli/dosa batter. For dosas you need to add little water to right consistency.
You can refrigerate the batter until you are ready to cook. You will need to remove the batter from refrigerator  and place it on kitchen counter for atleast 1 hour right before the cooking.

Making potato filling or masala

Ingredients

• 5 to 6 medium size potatoes
•  1 Onion medium size
•  1 tbsp oil
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 5 curry leaves fresh or dried curry leaves
• 2 green chillies ( optional)
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• Salt to taste
• 1/4 Cilantro finely chopped

Method

Boil the potatoes and let them cool down. 

Peel and mash the potatoes . If there are little chunk , leave them as it is and keep them aside.

Finely chop the onion.

Heat a pan and add oil into it.

Add mustard seeds and curry leaves . I forgot to add curry leaves so I couldn't click. When they start crackle , add onion. Sauté the onion for 1 min. For potato filling we don't need to sauté till golden.

Add turmeric powder and sauté for 1 sec.

 Add green chillies . I am skipping it.

After few sec add mashed potatoes and add salt to taste.

Give it a very good mix.

Sauté for 5 to 10 mins.

Add cilantro and stir properly.

 This is the masala for your masala dosa . I love this potato masala.

Method for making masala dosa

Take the batter in a small bowl. If batter is thick , add little water to it. The batter for dosa should be in pouring consistency and if you take batter in a ladle ,the back of the ladle should be coverd 

properly with a little thick layer of batter.

Heat a plain iron tava or non-stick pan. Apply few drops of  oil on pan and spread the oil properly with the help of spatula .

To check whether pan is ready to cook , sprinkle few drops of water. If it sizzles , it means tava is ready for dosa.

Wipe the pan with clean towel.

Take ladle ful batter and pour it on tava.

As soon as you pour the batter, spread the batter in circular motion from the center of pan to outer edge of pan.

Cook for 1-2 min on medium heat .

When you see the suface of dosa is cooked , take 2 tbsp of potato filling or masala.

Don't flip dosa

Add masala in center of dosa and try to roll it as it is in pics I showed.

Remove the dosa from pan and place it on a plate.

Serve the masala dosa with coconut chutney and sambhar.

Enjoy!!!