Dhokla recipe
A traditional cooking round-up.
This is a great snack when you prefer to eat light. This time, I feel a bit overwhelmed when I find in myself a greater Indian. The recipe is from west India - Rajasthan, cooking style from south - Tamilnadu and cooked in a Bengali kitchen of Kolkata - eastern India. Fine Indian food round-up. By Barnali Dutta Published:
Round cut dhokla – a traditional Indian recipe
Yield Serves 3
Ingredients:
- 1 cup gram flour.
- Semolina or suji 2 tablespoon.
- 1/2 cup sour yogurt,
- 1 and half cup hot water,
- 1 lemon,
- 1/4 cup sunflower oil,
- Turmeric 1 teaspoon,
- Ginger and green chili paste 2 teaspoon,
- Salt 2 teaspoon,
- Sugar 2 teaspoon,
- Sodium bicarbonate half teaspoon toasted and one teaspoon raw,
- Fruit salt or ENO, 1 teaspoon,
For tempering
- Black mustered seeds, 1 teaspoon,
- Shredded coconut, 3 teaspoon,
- Curry leaves, 5 to 6 leaves,
- Green chili, 2 to 3,
- Asafoetida raw, 1 pinch, mix in warm water to dilute the chunk ,
- Minced coriander leaves, 2 teaspoon,
Instructions:
- First sieve the gram flour, take it in a big bowl, make a space in the middle, put yogurt, slowly mix the gram flour with the yogurt with the help of a fork. Take one cup lukewarm water and add little by little while mixing the yogurt with the gram flour, it will be a semi-thin and semi-thick batter. Add semolina, mix well to make a smooth batter. Add toasted sodium bicarbonate powder. Mix and cover the bowl, keep aside for 8 to 10 hours.
- After resting period add ginger and chili paste, lemon juice, raw sodium bicarbonate, salt, turmeric and sugar. Mix well. Mix rest of the lukewarm water and sunflower oil in a bowl, add to the batter slowly, watch constantly, the batter should not be watery or tight whereas semi-liquid consistency, beat until smooth.
- Now it's time to cook the steamed cake, puffy dhokla. It will be cooked in double boiler as a water bath in indirect heat. Fill one pan with water and arrange one deep flat pot which can be placed on top of the pan of simmering water. liberally grease the inner surface of the flat pot with sunflower oil and make the water of the double boiler boil, now simmer the heat.
- Take the bowl of batter, put fruit salt in it. Mix once or twice with quick hand, soon after that put the ready gram flour batter in the greased pot. The dhokla will be puffed up to double so take a deep pan or cook in batches if necessary to leave enough space to make spongy dhoklas. Cover it lightly and place it in the pan for water bath. The container should be immersed about halfway into the boiling hot water, a traditional bain-marie.
- Wait for 20 minutes. Now take out your puffing hot Dhoklas from huffing pot. Be careful about the hot steam of double-boiler.
- Cut Dhoklas with pastry cutter in round shape or any shape of your choice.
- I found this option quicker and handy. I took my microwave idly stand, greased it well. I gave very small amount of batter in every cups of the idly stand, microwave for 5 minutes and in no time it was ready to be served.
- Now add tempering to hot Dhokla. Take a pan,add 2 teaspoon oil and turn on the heat, add mustard seeds wait until splutter, add curry leaves, whole green chili and asafoetida water. Pour it over the ready dhokla. Garnish with Shredded coconut and coriander leaves. Serve with tamarind chutney.
- To make tamarind chutney for dhokla take a bowl, put 1 tablespoon tamarind juice, 1 tablespoon water, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon red chili powder, 1 teaspoon lemon juice and salt to taste. Mix well, Make it boil in simmer. Serve cool.
