1001 Instant Dosas

Unlike a regular dosa, which takes forever to prepare, instant dosas can be cooked in 10 minutes flat. Just mix a variety of flours and water to make a batter, pour on a skillet, and your dosa is ready.

Mix in a couple of pinches of baking powder to the batter, pour them into thick rounds, and you have instant uttappams. By varying the base, additives and toppings, we can cook up hundreds of instant dosas.

Change base :
A variety of flours can be used to make instant dosas, but some flours like ragi / millet flour are not very easy to work with. It is for this reason they are combined with wheat flour. Once you gain confidence, you can gradually reduce the amount of wheat flour used. See model recipes for Rava Dosa, Wheat flour dosa.

Additives
A variety of additives from cumin to jaggery is used to spice up instant dosas. Just mix them in along with the batter.

Topping
Though they taste great without any topping, a variety of toppings ranging from plain butter to mashed potatoes can be used.

Though mostly savoury, the sweet versions taste delicious too, especially the wheat flour dosas. An instant dosa made from dry flour is nothing but a crepe. A sweet dosa can be topped with jam / cream / ice cream / honey / syrup and served as a dessert. The famous French crepes are just wheat flour dosas, and usually have milk and eggs mixed into the batter.

On the same note, an instant uttappam is nothing but a pancake. Dosas, being thin, do not need a leavening agent to fluff them up. But uttappams being thicker, need one. And that’s why you need to mix in a couple of pinches of baking powder to the instant dosa batter before making uttappams. Otherwise, the uttappam will be thick and rubbery and not soft at all.

Have fun in cooking scores of dosas and delicious uttappams – and who said Indian food takes time to cook ?

And that’s my entry for Padma's &  Srivalli’s Dosa Mela.