Masala Dosai (மசாலா தோசை) with Tiffin Sambar and Coconut Chutney

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// OPERATIONS

1. 1 Rinse the rice in four or five changes of cold water, rubbing it between your palms, then cover it with 1.2 litres of cold water in a large bowl and leave it 5 hours. In a second bowl, rinse the urad dal twice and soak it with the fenugreek seeds in 600 ml cold water for 4 hours. Keep them in separate bowls and do not be tempted to combine them to save washing up: urad dal ground alone whips up like egg white, and that aeration is the entire engine of the rise, which you lose the moment rice grit is in the jar with it. In hot weather do not push either soak past 8 hours, or the dal turns slimy and sours before it can ferment.
2. 2 Drain the dal over a bowl and keep 200 ml of its soaking water, which carries much of the wild lactobacillus that will do the fermenting. Grind the dal and fenugreek in a stone wet grinder for 20-25 minutes, or in a high-powered blender in 30-second bursts with a full minute of rest between each, adding the reserved water a splash at a time and topping up with ice-cold water only if you need it, to a total of 180-220 ml: a stone grinder wants the lower end, a blender the higher. A home blender is what almost every South Indian kitchen now uses and it is perfectly acceptable, but its heat is the one real danger; if the jar feels warm to your palm, above about 30C/86F, stop and wait 5 minutes, because heat kills the microbes and the batter will never rise. It is ready when it is glossy, bright white, roughly doubled in volume, and half a teaspoon dropped into a cup of cold water floats instead of sinking.
3. 3 Drain the rice and grind it with 250-300 ml cold water, 25-30 minutes in a wet grinder or in a blender in 1-minute bursts scraping down between, until it feels like fine semolina when rubbed between your fingers. Rice is harder than the soaked dal and needs no aeration, so it goes second and takes longer; stopping early leaves gritty grains that sit in the batter like sand and tear the crepe as you spread it. A little fine grit is correct and is what gives the cooked dosai its lace and its crackle, so do not grind it silky smooth chasing a restaurant look, or you will get a pale, soft, leathery crepe that never crisps. Scrape it into the bowl with the dal batter.
4. 4 Add 2 tsp of the rock or sea salt and mix the two batters together with your clean hand, in wide sweeping circles from the bottom of the bowl, for a full 2 minutes. Use your hand rather than a spoon: it folds in air and inoculates the batter from your skin, and this is not superstition, it measurably speeds the ferment. The batter should fall from your fingers in a thick unbroken ribbon and mound for a second on the surface before sinking; if it is stiff, work in cold water 1 tbsp at a time. Use non-iodised salt only, as iodine suppresses the fermentation, and transfer it to a deep container it fills no more than halfway, or it will climb out over the rim in the night.
5. 5 Cover loosely with a plate rather than a sealed lid and leave at 26-32C/79-90F for 8-12 hours, or 16-20 hours in a cool 20C/68F kitchen; an oven with only the interior light switched on holds this range well. It is ready when it has risen to one and a half to twice its volume, the surface is domed and honeycombed with fine bubbles, and it smells cleanly sour like yoghurt. If it has risen and then collapsed, gone watery, or smells sharply of alcohol or old cheese, it has over-fermented and the dosai will be sour and limp, so start again. Fold it gently once before use and never beat the air out; this makes more batter than the masala will fill, and the surplus keeps 4 days refrigerated.
6. 6 Pressure-cook the toor dal with 600 ml water, 1/2 tsp of the turmeric and a few drops of oil for 12 minutes at full pressure (about 5 whistles), or simmer it covered in a saucepan for 45-55 minutes, topping up the water, until the grains collapse completely under the back of a spoon; whisk hard for 30 seconds to a smooth pale cream. Meanwhile soak the tamarind in 350 ml hot water for 15 minutes, squeeze it out with your fingers and strain, discarding the fibres. Bring the tamarind water, the whole shallots, another 1/2 tsp turmeric, the sambar powder and 1 1/4 tsp salt to a simmer in a 3-litre pan over medium heat and cook uncovered for 10-12 minutes, splashing in hot water if the shallots ever stand proud of the liquid, until the raw mouth-puckering smell of the tamarind has gone and the shallots are translucent and yield to a fingernail while still holding their shape.
7. 7 Stir the whisked dal into the tamarind base with 200-300 ml water to bring it to the consistency of single cream, because tiffin sambar is meant to be thin enough to dip a dosai into rather than a thick stew, and hold it at a bare tremble for 5 minutes without ever letting it reach a rolling boil, which throws the dal out of suspension and leaves you with cloudy water over a grainy sediment. Heat 2 tbsp gingelly oil in a small pan over medium-high, add 1 tsp mustard seeds and wait for them to crackle and jump, about 20 seconds, then add 1 sprig of curry leaves and 1/4 tsp asafoetida, count to three and pour the whole sizzling lot into the sambar before the hing can scorch and turn acrid. Stir in half the coriander and take it off the heat.
8. 8 For the chutney, blend the coconut, roasted chana dal, 2 of the green chillies, 10 g of the ginger and 3/4 tsp salt with 120-150 ml cold water for 60-90 seconds, scraping down twice, to a thick spoonable puree that still has a faint grain. Use cold water only: warm water makes the coconut release its oil and the chutney separates into a greasy, grey mess. Heat 1 tbsp gingelly oil in a small pan over medium-high, pop 1 tsp mustard seeds for about 15 seconds, add 1 sprig curry leaves and a pinch of asafoetida, and pour it over the surface without stirring; leave it 20 minutes to perfume the chutney and stir through only as you sit down.
9. 9 Boil the potatoes whole and unpeeled in a covered pan of well-salted water, salt over and above the 5 tsp allotted above, for 25-30 minutes, or 8-10 minutes at full pressure, until a skewer slides to the centre with no resistance at all, then drain and peel them while they are still hot enough to be uncomfortable. Break them into rough 2-3 cm lumps with your fingers. Never use a masher, ricer or food processor: a fully smooth mash turns pasty in the pan and slumps out of the dosai in a wet smear instead of sitting inside it in soft pieces.
10. 10 Heat 3 tbsp gingelly oil in a 26 cm kadai or heavy skillet over medium-high, add 1 tsp mustard seeds and wait for them to pop, about 20 seconds, then add the raw split chana dal and fry it for 60-90 seconds until it turns the colour of pale straw and smells nutty. Watch it rather than the clock, because chana dal goes from straw to bitter brown in a matter of seconds and there is no rescuing it. Add the remaining 4 slit green chillies, 15 g ginger, 2 sprigs curry leaves and 1/2 tsp asafoetida, standing back for the spatter, then tip in the sliced onions with 1 tsp salt.
11. 11 Lower the heat to medium and cook the onions for 10-12 minutes, stirring often, until they are completely soft, glassy and translucent with no browning whatsoever. Udupi masala is pale gold and sweet from the onion alone; if you let it catch colour you have made a north Indian potato filling instead, and the flavour goes caramelly where it should be clean. Stir in the last 1/2 tsp turmeric for 20 seconds, until it smells earthy rather than raw and dusty, then add 200 ml water and bring it to a simmer.
12. 12 Fold in the broken potatoes, crush a small handful of them against the side of the pan to thicken the whole, and cook for 4-5 minutes until the masala is moist and just holds a soft heap on the spoon. It should look slightly wetter than you think you want, because it tightens as it stands and a dry masala turns to sawdust inside the crepe; loosen it with a splash of hot water if it stiffens while it waits. Stir in the remaining coriander, check the salt, and keep it warm and covered: you should have about 1 kg, which is enough to fill twelve dosai generously.
13. 13 Fold the batter gently and thin it with water until a ladleful pours in a steady unbroken stream and a spoonful dropped back settles level in 2-3 seconds, thicker than milk and thinner than yoghurt. Set a 26-28 cm cast-iron tawa over medium-high heat until a flick of water skitters across it and vanishes in 2-3 seconds, roughly 200-220C/390-430F, rub it with the reserved onion half dipped in oil, then splash on a tablespoon of water and wipe it dry with a folded cloth. That wipe drops the surface to around 180C/355F, the only window in which batter will spread rather than set on contact, and you must repeat it before every single dosai; a non-stick pan will produce a crepe but never a genuinely crisp one.
14. 14 Pour 80 ml, a scant 1/3 cup, of batter into the centre and, with the base of the ladle just touching it, spread outward in one continuous spiral to a 24-26 cm circle in 5-8 seconds, using no downward pressure at all. Drizzle 1 tsp ghee around the rim and cook over medium-high for 90 seconds to 2 minutes without touching it, until the top loses its wet shine and goes matt and pitted, the underside is lacy chestnut brown, and the edges lift and curl away from the pan by themselves; never flip a masala dosai, because the crisp side must stay crisp. Spoon about 80 g of masala, three heaped tablespoons, in a line down one side, fold it into a half-moon or roll it into a cone, and slide it straight onto a warm plate or a banana leaf. Serve each one the second it leaves the tawa, with hot sambar to dip and a spoonful of coconut chutney, because a masala dosai goes soft in about a minute and will not wait, and expect the first dosai of the batch to be a write-off, which happens in hotel kitchens too.

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