A thin, crackling crepe made from a simple stir-together batter of semolina and rice flour, freckled with cumin, pepper and curry leaves; no fermentation needed.
Breakfast · 10 min prep · 20 min cook · serves 4 Newly added
Ingredients
- ½ cup rava (semolina) , fine
- ½ cup rice flour
- 2 tbsp besan (gram flour)
- 2 tbsp curd (yogurt)
- 2½ cups water
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- ½ tsp black pepper , coarsely crushed
- 1 pinch asafoetida (hing)
- 6 curry leaves , torn
- 1 green chili , optional, finely chopped
- 1 tsp ginger (fresh) , grated
- to taste rock salt
- 3 tbsp ghee , for the tava
Preparation
-
Whisk the rava, rice flour, besan, curd, salt and water into a thin, watery batter; whisk in cumin, pepper, hing, curry leaves, chili and ginger.
-
Rest the batter 20 minutes, then whisk again and thin with water until it pours like milk; this batter must stay pourable.
-
Heat a flat tava on medium-high. Stir the batter, then drizzle it over the tava from a height in a spiral of drops; do not spread it; the gaps become the lace.
-
Drizzle ghee around the edges and over the holes; cook until the dosa is golden and lifts at the edges, 2–3 minutes.
-
Fold without turning, a rava dosa cooks on one side only, and serve with coconut chutney.
In the tradition
The rava dosa is a beautiful cheat: where a true dosa demands overnight fermentation, this one stirs together in minutes and relies on a thin batter and a hot tava for its lattice. The notebook records it in the fewest words of any recipe, hing, jeera; as if the writer knew the batter by heart.
Sources & further reading
- Family recipe notebook (noted beside the dosa page, "Rava Dosa: hing, jeera")
Classical citations mark where a tradition is drawn on; modern books are shared as further reading, not as prescriptions.