GODHI/WHEAT FLOUR DOSAE

This is one of the simplest dosaes, an idea got from a young friend. This is instant and you can prepare whenever you think of since you have all the ingredients ready on you kitchen shelves for sure.  If you have no patience to roll chapathis, you can spread the batter and make dosaes!  You can include this in your menu for breakfast/evening snack/dinner !

You take:

Wheat flour                                       1 cup
Milk                                                   1 cup
Salt                                                   1/2 teaspoon
Ginger grated                                    1 teaspoon
Green chili                                         1 or 2 finely chopped
onion                                                  1/2 medium, finely chopped
Coriander 
       or                                                1 tablespoon chopped
Kasoori methi                                    1 tablespoon
Tamarind paste thick                         1/2 teaspoon
Cumin                                                1/4 teaspoon
Oil                                                       For roasting

procedure:

Take wheat flour in a bowl and add milk and whisk it till you get a dosae batter consistency. Add salt. Add all other ingredients and mix well. And it is ready to be spread on the tava! Spread one teaspoon oil on the tava, spread the batter and shallow fry on both sides just as you do for other dosaes.  Golden brown, thin, crisp dosae is ready ! You can have it hot with chatni pudi or any chatni, or without any of these.

A Note: You can mix just wheat flour, milk and a pinch of salt and make a plain dosae and have it with honey too.

This quantity will yield 4-5 dosaes.

AKKI PAYASA / KHEER

As many of you might know, this is a very popular dish. Usually it is an important item of a festival menu. Easy to make this,  but may be a bit time consuming. But it doesn't require you be around all the time, provided you have a big and thick bottomed pan to cook it.  It might take about half an hour for the whole process.

Usually they use Basmati rice for this, but I use Jeerige saNNa (Jeera rice), which is very small in size and has the same flavour as Basmati.

Ingredients:

Jeera rice                                                                   1 fistful
Thick milk                                                                   1 1/2 litre
Sugar                                                                          2-3 tablespoons
Saffron                                                                        About 10 strands
Almond slivered and roasted                                      2 tablespoons                             
Pure ghee                                                                   1 teaspoon

Procedure:

Soak saffron in about a tablespoon of hot milk.

Wash rice. Take milk in a large thick bottomed pan (to prevent milk from overflowing while boiling),  When it starts boiling, add rice.  Cook on a slow flame.

During the process, keep scraping out the cream that gets collected around the vessel, and put it back to the contents.  Cook till the contents reduce to 1/3 the volume, stirring in between taking care that it does not get burnt at the bottom. Add sugar. I add very less sugar, i.e about 2 tablespoons. Cook for one more minute. Add ghee. Add in the soaked saffron along with the milk and mix well. Transfer the contents to a bowl. Garnish with almond pieces. If you like you can add cashew nuts and raisins also.

You can make changes as per your convenience. To reduce the cooking time, you pressure cook the rice in milk, and add 1/3 of a tin of condensed milk and boil it. Here you need not add sugar.  Or, after pressure cooking you can add milk powder and boil it. Here you need to add sugar.

And if you want the payasa to be rich and thick, you can add powdered almonds.

I find that the payasa tastes better if cooled and as it gets older :)

Serves 4-6 or more, depending upon whether you serve it with a heavy/light  lunch/dinner !

Why don't you try it out today?