Lentil madness..

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I was set on recreating some recipes from my childhood and one of my favorite ones was dosa! Mom would serve us hot dosas right off the tava and boy it felt heavenly! The spicy chutney and the rich sambhar would be just perfect! But back in India mom would either gather patience to ferment the batter.. (Read: only if we had guests) or else go to a local grocery store and pick up a bag of the ready batter.. anyhow those thin and crispy dosas were mouth-watering!

But I am even more lazier..and a drive down to the local Indian store doesn't really happen especially on a lazy sunday..so after a bit of digging around I decided to experiment with lentil dosas. My mom made this a couple of times, when she was bored with the usuals.. but I wasn't sure what combination she really used. So I decided to go with what I had in my pantry and it turned out beautiful!

I love lentils..can't really express how much.For these dosas I decided to use five different types of them! Yes five types of lentils! Of course these dosas are a spin-off of the originals, but with the variety of the lentils, there is no end to the combinations one can conjure up. The best part being the dosa batter is ready in a few hours, no need to wait overnight for the fermentation. Here's my rendition of this lovely lentil dosa:

Lentil Dosa

Ingredients:
1/4 cup toor dal (Split pigeon pea)
1/4 cup moong dal (Split mung beans)
1/4 cup whole moong (Mung beans)
1/4 cup chana dal (Split bengal gram dal)
1/3 cup urad dal (Split vigna mungo bean)
1/3 cup white rice (any variety should do, I used basmati)
2 dried red chilies
1 inch ginger roughly chopped
oil for making dosas
1/2 onion
salt to taste

Clockwise from the top: Chana Dal,Whole Moong, Toor Dal, Urad Dal, Moong Dal

• Soak all the lentils and rice in water for 6-8 hrs.
• Grind the soaked lentils and rice to a coarse texture along with the red chillies and ginger. Season with salt. The batter should have a medium consistency but a bit thicker than the usual dosa batter. Let the batter rest for about 10-15 minutes.
• Now heat a non-stick pan. Sprinkle a few drops of water and let them evaporate or just use an onion and mop it over the base. Pour two spoonfuls of the batter and spread out the dosa with a light hand. The dosa isn't supposed to be very thin, but I had kept some batter for the next day and managed to get very thin dosas with it.
• Let one side get a bit crispy and sprinkle few drops of oil and turn the dosa over. Let it get cooked and served with a spicy coconut chutney or sambhar. Enjoy!

This recipe goes into my favorite recipes list and I will most surely make it again!
With all the lentil madness going on, I am definitely entering this one into the monthly MLLA event initiated by Susan and guest hosted by Cathy this month.
Also entering this one into the Flavors of South India event hosted by simply.food.
Have a good week everyone!