Masala dosa

Before you start

• a blender
• started the day before — 5h soaking, then overnight fermenting
• a heavy flat pan, and the patience to write off the first one

Ingredients

Serves 2 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 140gidli rice — plain raw white rice; a handful of poha ground in makes it crisper
• 45gurad dal
• ½ tspfenugreek seeds
• 250gpotatoes
• 1½ tbspghee or oil
• 2onions
• 2green chillies
• 15curry leaves
• 1 tbspchana dal and urad dal — for the tempering, not the batter
• 1 tspmustard seeds and turmeric

Method

7 steps

1. soak · 5 hours walk away

   Rice in one bowl, urad dal and fenugreek in another, five hours in cold water.

2. blend · 15m

   Ground separately — the dal to a light foam, the rice left a shade grainy — then folded together with salt using a hand rather than a spoon.

3. rest · 10 hours walk away

   Somewhere warm and covered until it has risen and smells sour. Nothing else in this recipe supplies either the lift or the tang, and there is no ingredient you can buy that stands in.

4. boil · 25m

   Potatoes boiled in their skins, peeled while warm and broken up coarse rather than mashed.

5. fry · 12m

   Mustard seeds popped in the oil with the dals, curry leaves and chilli, then onions cooked soft, turmeric in, then the potato folded through with a splash of water until it is a proper yellow.

6. fry · 20m

   Pan hot enough that a flick of water skitters across it, then wiped with a halved onion. A ladle of batter poured at the centre and spread outwards in one spiral without ever lifting the ladle. Oil round the rim, no lid, and no turning at all.

7. finish · 5m

   Lifted when the underside is an even brown and the edges have curled up by themselves. Potato down the middle, folded over, coconut chutney and sambar beside.