Besan Dosai

This recipe is inspired by Malabar's Masala Uttappam, a beautiful hotcake-like dosai made with tomato and coriander. Normally dosai is made by fermenting rice and lentils, but because I don't have the patience, I came up with this version using besan (chickpea) flour.

Ingredients

1.5 cups besan flour

1 level teaspoon ground coriander

1 level teaspoon cumin seeds (or ground cumin if you prefer, but reduce the quality)

Salt to taste

2 small tomatoes peeled and diced

1 brown onion, finely diced

Chopped coriander to taste

Coconut oil

Method

1. Combine besan flour, salt & half a cup of coconut oil with enough cold water to make a batter that's pancake consistency. Rest for 1 hour. 
2. Fold through other ingredients.
3. Heat your fry pan until it's very hot. Add your olive oil - don't be shy - you don't want the dosai to stick.
4. Fry a ladle full of mixture in a very hot fry pan. As soon as you've first poured the mixture into the fry pan, using the bottom of the ladle, shimmy the tomato and onion evenly across the dosai.
5. Flip after about 2 mins and cook the other side for another 2 mins. Essentially, the dosai should be deep golden brown in colour.

TIP: You might find the oil burns a little, so wipe the pan with kitchen paper between frying each dosia.

The Italian version on this is called Socca and it's delicious. 

I love this with my split red lentil dahl and rice.