Dosa
 Dosa |
|
| Origin | |
|---|---|
| Alternative name(s) | Dosa, Thosai, Dosay, Dose, Dosai, Dhosha, Tosai, Chakuli, Pullattu |
| Place of origin | India |
| Region or state | Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, |
| Details | |
| Main ingredient(s) | rice batter, urad bean |
| Variations | masala dosa, rava dosa, onion dosa, neer dosa, paneer dosa |
Dosa or Dosai or Dosé is a fermented crepe or pancake made from rice batter and black lentils.[1] It is indigenous to and is a staple dish in the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, as well as being popular in Sri Lanka. Dosa is also popular in Malaysia[2] and Singapore,[3] where the name Thosai is more common,[4] and in Myanmar as Toshay.
Origin
The origins of dosa have been widely discussed in literature and books. A few of them are listed below:
- A reference to Dosa occurs in the Tamil Sangam Literature[5] from around 6th century AD.[6] Edward Farnworth mentions the first reference to Thosai in Tamil Sangam literature in the sixth century A.D.[7]
Orthography and transliteration
There are various ways of transliterating dosa: dose, dhosha, dosay, dosai, dhosai, tosai, thosai, or dvashi.
Nutrition
Dosa, a common breakfast dish[8] and street food,[9] is rich in carbohydrates, contains no salt, sugar or saturated fats, and its constituent ingredients of rice and lentils mean it is gluten-free and contains protein.[8][10] The fermentation process increases the vitamin B and vitamin C content.[11][12] There are also instant mix products for making dosa, with somewhat lower nutritional benefits.[13]
The street food variants may contain contaminants or otherwise undesirable additions, such as relatively high levels of copper.[14]
Basic preparation
A mixture of Rice and Urad dal that has been soaked in water is ground finely to form a batter. The proportion of rice to lentils is basically 2:1 or 3:1. The batter is allowed to sit overnight and ferment. Sometimes a little Fenugreek seeds are added to the Rice-dal mixture. Rice can be uncooked or parboiled. The mixture of urad dal (black lentils) and rice can be replaced with highly refined wheat flour to make a maida dosa, or semolina for a rava dosa.
A thin layer of the batter is then ladled onto a hot tava (griddle) greased with oil or ghee (clarified butter). It is spread out evenly with the base of a ladle or bowl to form a pancake. It is flipped to heat both crusts and removed from the griddle when the crust becomes dry. A dosa is served hot, either folded in half or rolled like a wrap.
Serving methods
Dosa can be stuffed with fillings of vegetables and sauces to make a quick meal. They are typically served with a vegetarian side dish' which varies according to regional and personal preferences. Common side items are:
- Sambar
- Wet chutney: examples include coconut chutney (a semisolid paste made up of coconut, dal (lentils), green chilli and mint or coriander)
- Dry chutney: a powder of spices and desiccated coconut
- Indian pickles
- Milagai powder: fried dry chillies, dal, asafoetida i.e., hing, salt, with all the ingredients are put together and ground coarsely
- Curd: (meaning yogurt in Indian English) with chilli powder topping
- Sugar: children are often given dosa with sugar instead of curries, which may be too spicy for them.
- Muddha pappu: with large amount of ghee, this is the traditional way of eating dosa in many parts of Andhra Pradesh.[citation needed]
Variations
Though dosa typically refers to the version made with rice and lentils, many other versions exist, often specific to an Indian region. Some variations include egg dosa, which is spread with an omelette, and cheese dosa, which is stuffed with cheese.
- Chilli dosa: spread with chilli powder
- Open dosa: chutney powder is spread on it while cooking, before serving, spiced and mashed potato is placed on top.
- Onion dosa: spread with chopped and sautéed onions
- Ghee (thuppa/nei) dosa: ghee is used instead of oil while frying.
- Butter dosa: butter is used instead of oil when frying, and a small amount is placed on top of it when serving.
- Roast: the dosa is spread thinly and fried until crisp.
- Kerala dosa: a different kind of traditional dosa, it is small, thick, soft and spongy. It is more like a pancake and somewhat similar to appam, but dal is used in the batter for appam, and the appam is not flat.
- Family roast: a long dosa which can be spread over 2 or 3 feet
- Paper dosa: a long and very thin, delicate dosa which can be spread over 2 feet
- Green dosa: stuffed with fresh vegetables and mint chutney
- Chow-chow dosa: stuffed with (Indian flavored) Chinese noodles
- Masala dosa: stuffed with spiced potatoes
- Methi dosa: flavoured with fenugreek
- Cone dosa: shaped like a cone
- Rava dosa: made with rava (semolina), it does not need fermentation, and is usually considered a snack or fast food.
- Wheat dosa: made with wheat flour, and served with coconut chutney
- Vella dosa: made of jaggery with ghee or nei
- 'Ragi dosa: made of ragi or millet flour, it is usually considered[who?] "a poor man's fare".
- Muttai dosa: eggs are added to the regular batter; the word muttai in Tamil means "egg".
- Uththapam: thick round dosa in south india
- Set dose: a popular type of dosa in Karnataka, it is cooked only on one side and served in a set of two to three, hence the name.
- Benne dose: similar to masala or set dosa, but smaller in size, it is served with liberal helpings of butter sprinkled on it. It is said[who?] to have originated in the Davanagere district of the state of Karnataka.
- Cabbage dosa: made out of cabbage, a paste is prepared with rice, red chillies, asafotida and turmeric. Once the batter is ready, cabbage cut into small pieces is added to the paste and left for about 30 mins. Once this is done, the batter is poured and the dosa is made crisp.
- Neer dosa: prepared from rice, it is unique to Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Uttara Kannada and malenadu regions.[citation needed]
- 70 MM dosa: similar to masala dosa, it is larger, about 60 cm in diameter.
- American chop suey dosa: served with a filling of fried noodles and tomato ketchup
- Uppu puli dosa: made by adding uppu (salt) and puli (tamarind) to the batter, it is a part of Udupi cuisine.[citation needed]
Masala dosa
A masala dosa is made by stuffing a dosa with a lightly cooked filling of potatoes, fried onions and spices. It wraps the dosa around an onion and potato curry or sabji.[clarification needed] It is listed at number 49 on World's 50 most delicious foods complied by CNN Go in 2011.[15]
Before it was invented, plain dosa was served with potato curry (liquified potato palya) without onions in a separate cup. During a shortage of potatoes,[citation needed] a method was created in which potato was mashed and sautéed with onions with other spices. This was then placed inside the dosa instead of in a separate cup to hide the onions, which are not eaten by orthodox Hindus and Jains.[citation needed] This came to be known as "masala dosa", from the sautéeing of spices (masala) during the preparation of the potato palya.[citation needed]
Some variants are:
- Mysore masala dosa: masala dosa with coconut and onion chutneys spread inside along with the potato stuffing
- Vegetable masala dosa: instead of potatoes, peas and other vegetables are mashed to make the stuffing.
- Rava masala dosa: rava (semolina), especially the Bombay Rava, is used instead of rice.
- Chinese masala dosa: noodles and other Chinese ingredients like schezwan sauce are added.
- Paneer chilli dosa: stuffed with sautéed cottage cheese (paneer) and capsicum
- Palak Masala dosa: coated with a thin layer of puréed spinach, and filled with the traditional potato/onion mixture
- Masala dosa: one or two fried eggs served on top
- Davanagere benne masala dosa: named after Davanagere in Karnataka, this is prepared by adding liberal doses of butter and also a potato filling (palya).
- Set Masala dosa: or simply set masale, mostly served in Mysore, contains two smaller masala dosas. Some times one of them is filled with vegetable Korma/Saagu and the other one with the usual Potato-Onion Palya.
In Bangalore, the masala dosa is usually served with a red chutney applied to its inside surface. The red chutney usually has generous amounts of garlic.
Similar foods
-
Pesarattu: a dosa-like preparation prepared from moong dal, which is typically served with a ginger and tamarind chutney in Andhra Pradesh. The variations include:
- using soaked whole moong seeds (along with green cover), which gives a greenish tint to the pesarattu; and
- using yellow coloured moong dal (green cover removed and dal is refined), which gives a golden yellow tint to it when roasted.
- Adai: a dosa-like dish prepared from a combination of dals, namely urad, channa and moong dal.
- Appam, aappam or hopper in Sri Lanka — a pancake prepared from a combination of patted rice (avalakki), rice and yoghurt. The primary differences between an appam and a dosa are that an appam is thicker (up to five times as thick as a dosa), can optionally contain curd, the dough differs in ratio of rice and urud dhal and is more finely ground than dosa batter, the centre is thicker and the outer rim is very thin (whereas a dosa is more or less uniformly thick). Sometimes other ingredients are added to the top of the appam as it is cooked — this gives rise to the Sri Lankan "egg hopper" where an egg is cooked on top of the appam/hopper as it is fried, and the uttapam (see below).
- Uttapam is a dosa-like dish made by cooking ingredients in its batter. Unlike a dosa, which is crisp and crepe-like, uttapam is a thick pancake, with toppings cooked right into the batter. Uttapam is sometimes characterized as an Indian pizza.
- Injera: a pancake-like bread made out of teff flour that is traditionally eaten in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia (where it is also called canjeero or laxoox) and Yemen (where it is known as lahoh)
- Chakuli pitha: similar to utthappam, but has more black gram and less rice flour, found in Oriya cuisine[citation needed]
Gallery
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Sada dosa
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Paper Masala Dosa
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Dosa and ghee
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Masala Thosai
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Rava dosa
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Ghee dosa
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Chutney and Dosa
See also
References
- ^ Shetty, Kalidas (2006). Food biotechnology. CRC Press. p. 1780. ISBN 978-0-8247-5329-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=E3bvD2jU4B0C&pg=PA1780. Retrieved 5 March 2011.
- ^ http://goseasia.about.com/od/malaysianculturepeople/a/malaysia_indian_food_guide.htm
- ^ http://www.lonelyplanet.com/singapore/singapore-city/restaurants/indian-vegetarian/dosa-corner
- ^ http://www.metropolasia.com/Dosa_Corner
- ^ The Hindu : Epiphany and the Idli
- ^ Handbook of fermented functional foods - Google Books
- ^ Edward R. Farnworth. Handbook of fermented functional foods. CRC Press. p. 11. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=7LYHFGLJQNQC&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&dq=dosa+tamil+sangam+literature#v=onepage&q=dosa%20tamil%20sangam%20literature&f=false.
- ^ a b "Eat healthy: dosa". livestrong.com. http://www.livestrong.com/thedailyplate/nutrition-calories/food/generic/dosa/. Retrieved 2011-05-21.
- ^ Dalal, Tarla. Mumbai Roadside Snacks. Sanjay & Co.. p. 3. ISBN 978-81-89491-66-6. http://books.google.com/books?id=4kjEPd1NmmkC&pg=PA3.
- ^ Srilakshmi, B. (2006) [2002]. Nutrition Science (Revised 2nd ed.). New Age International (formerly Wiley Eastern Ltd.). p. 403. ISBN 978-81-224-1633-6. http://books.google.com/books?id=f_i7j4_cMLIC&pg=PA403. Retrieved 2011-05-22.
- ^ Pal, Dr J. S. (December 2006). "Traditional Indian Foods: Physio-Chemical Aspects". PFNDAI Bulletin: 3. http://www.pfndai.com/Dec06.pdf. Retrieved 2011-05-22.
- ^ Nutrition and Dietetics - Higher Secondary - First Year. Directorate of School Education, Government of Tamil Nadu. 2004. p. 31. http://www.textbooksonline.tn.nic.in/Books/11/Std11-Nutr-EM.pdf. Retrieved 2011-05-22.
- ^ "Calories in Dosa (Pan Cake)". calorie count. http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-mtr-dosa-pan-cake-i174221. Retrieved 2011-05-21.
- ^ Simopoulos, Artemis P.; Bhat, Ramesh Venkataramana (2000). Street foods - World review of nutrition and dietetics. Nutritional Triggers for Health and in Disease. 86. Karger Publishers. pp. 74, 78. ISBN 978-3-8055-6927-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=QQgwVl22fXkC.
- ^ CNN Go World's 50 most delicious foods 21 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-10-11
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