Yesterday I posted the recipe of Vegetable Kurma without coconut and I know, I went gaga over how awesome it tasted with the set dosa. Set Dosa was something I got introduced to only after moving to Bangalore, just like the many other food items for me. When I was staying as a paying guest during those days, the owner of the house had a rule - she fasts on Thursdays and hence, no food for the girls staying in her house too. Having never eaten in a restaurant before, I found it extremely difficult to eat outside food for a day every week. I found a small food joint near the bus stop in my area and was intrigued by this menu item - Set Dosa. Usually, it was served with coconut chutney and a masala gravy - which I began to love. The dosa itself would be spongy in consistency and the masala gravy to go with it, quite spicy.
Last week, I tried out the set dosa recipe in my kitchen and loved it immensely. I am very sure it's going to be a regular - merely for the taste and the ease of making it. This dosa has a slight sweet taste to it, owning the fact that it's topped with grated carrots - which also gives this dosa a bright color and also because of the use of flattened rice/poha - which also makes this dosa quite soft, literally melting in mouth.
To prepare Set Dosa
Serves - 4
Time to prepare - 2 hrs soaking time + 8 hrs resting time+ 3 mins cooking time (for each dosa)
What I used -
- Raw Rice/Dosa Rice, 1 cup
- Flattened Rice/Poha, 1 cup
- Urad Dal, 3 tbsp
- Methi Seeds, 1 tsp
- Salt, as required
- Oil, to sprinkle on dosa
- Grated Carrot, 3 tbsp
- Finely Chopped Coriander, 1 tbsp
How I made -
- Soak the raw rice, flattened rice and urad dal along with methi seeds for atleast 2 hrs.
- In a mixer/wet grinder, grind it into a smooth paste. Set aside and let it rest for atleast 8hrs. The batter should have risen up well.
- Beat it down with a ladle and add required salt. Mix well. The consistency of the batter should be a bit watery than the idli batter but thicker than the usual dosa batter. Do not add too much water while mixing.
- Heat dosa tawa and keep the flame on medium low. Take a ladleful of this dosa batter and pour it onto the hot tawa. Don't spread it like the usual dosa. The dosa should spread by itself. Sprinkle some oil on the sides. Within secs, there should a lot of holes forming on the dosa.
- In a small bowl, mix grated carrot and finely chopped coriander. Top the dosa with this carrot-coriander mixture.
- Let the dosa cook slowly until the bottom is golden brown. If you wish, you can flip the dosa and cook it on the other side.
- Serve hot with Vegetable Kurma.
Note -
- Flattened rice is essential to attain the softness for this dosa.
- I used mixer to grind the batter as the quantity was too low for a wet grinder and the consistency was just right.
- The dosa is on the sweeter side so a spicy side dish would be apt.
- This dosa is supposed to be thick and not too thin. So don't spread out after pouring it onto the tawa. If the consistency of the batter is correct, it spreads itself to form a perfect round.
- One can keep a lid on top of the dosa to fasten the cooking process. Flipping of the dosa is optional. I did not do it as I don't like the browned spots on my dosa both the sides.
My Era
This looks like an easy recipe, I am going to try it soon 🙂
OMG the pictures look fantastic. GB you are rocking with your DSLR 😀
CHCooks
Thanks so much ME 🙂 Pls do try it out! 🙂
Jo
I am gona try this
CHCooks
Pls do try and let me know how it turned out ok?! 🙂
Jo
sure 🙂
CHCooks
🙂
Chitra Jagadish
Set dosa is my family favorite breakfast and your pics are making me drooooool. .. slurp...
CHCooks
Thank you Chitra 🙂 Its going to be regular in my kitchen too!
The Girl Next Door
I love everything about your food pics, GB! The cookware, the lighting, the presentation - everything is perfect!
I had a couple of questions:
1. Since I am very much interested in food photography myself these days, what are the kinds of props/cookware I should invest in? Bowls, spoons, plates, what else? What sizes? Where in Bangalore can I buy them? What exactly should I look out for?
2. I usually end up cooking in the evenings, and am too hungry to click pictures patiently then. I need to eat what I have cooked. It also gets too dark to get good pictures, often. All the effort used in cooking that delicious meal then goes undocumented. How do you combat this?
CHCooks
Thank you so much TGND 🙂 I am still learning to shoot proper pictures and this is kind of encouraging 🙂
About your questions -
1. I initially used the plates or cutlery that I had at home and I still do it. But one thing I started noticing is that - most of my serveware is quite big. For ex - plates. For taking good pictures, I realized having medium sized or small plates work. So I got a few melamine bowls and plates in different shapes. Actually I dont have any specific shop as such.. but I usually try to find something in the cutlery section in a supermarket. I recently got small kadai and a bucket in stainless steel. The problem with stainless steel serveware is that, they lose their shine in some time as you keep washing them. So I use it only for my photography and quickly transfer the contents to another bowl and immediately wash the serve-ware too.
2. I have the very same problem TGND. Most of the times I am super hungry and when a shot doesnt come as I expect it to, I become very cranky - you should ask S 😀 So, to beat that I either eat a little fruit or something before trying to click pictures. And most of my dishes are planned to be prepared during the weekend - that way I can cook/click during the day. I dont like to use flash as it makes the photo too harsh, so I found a couple of places in the house where there is abundant light. Like the balcony. A spot next to our guest bedroom window. At times the lighting works and at times it doesnt. When I cook food in the evening, I have no option but to use the lighting from the tube-light and the color tone is not that great. But there is no choice really. Some photo is better than no photo at all. I dont know if I have to invest in some basic lighting equipment, but everything seems too costly.
Hope I answered your queries. Would be happy to take this discussion to mail, if you have any further topics 🙂 Feels good to talk about my obsession with someone who shares it too 🙂
The Girl Next Door
Thanks so much! 🙂 Yes, feels good to talk about my latest obsession with someone who is just as obsessed as me. 😀
Where did you buy the stainless steel bucket from? I've been looking for one, can't find one anywhere! Not even in Trichy.
What exactly should I look out for, in terms of props? Apart from bowls, plates? Mats?
I have just begun browsing around the cutlery sections of supermarkets and have collected some basic props for food photography. Would love to get some more. Can you give me some ideas, please? Your favourite stores where you found a good collection?
Could I get a sneak peek into your cookware/serveware collection, please? The ones that you largely use for food photography? I would love, love, love that.
You use a DSLR, right? With that, the problem of lighting doesn't matter all that much. I use a Sony Point N Shoot, which makes the problem very prominent.
CHCooks
TGND - I understand 😀
The sister got me that steel bucket from a very small shop in Chennai - I had been looking for one, since so long.
I dont have much of props myself TNGD. I only have some table cloths and mats - thats it. I am yet to experiment with props, as I dont have a macro-lens - its very difficult to vary to depth of field. Investing in a macro lens seems too much. I usually use the ingredients to compliment the main dish - I have seen you did that for a couple of pictures too. That for me seems natural and not forced.
My usual haunts are MK retail store near my house - I find some good cutlery there. Other than that, I checkout the cutlery from Big Bazaar or Star Bazaar or such hyper markets.
If you feel like spending a bit, Jamaals has some very good collection but my heart didnt let me spend a lot on a single piece. I am kanjoos like that 😀
Sure I will do a post on my cutlery or share it with you on email ok?!
Yeah I am using DSLR and still lighting would completely change the tone of the picture. I recently made some mango based dessert and just bcos of the lighting, the color of the mango seemed to come out as pale yellow rather than the bright orange that it was. Usually pics taken in natural light are looking good for me.
Aah I get it, with point n shoot you dont have the liberty to change the exposure later.
The Girl Next Door
Thought you might like to read these posts:
http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/street-food-photography-tips/
http://www.crumblycookie.net/food-photography/
CHCooks
Thanks a lot for sharing the links TGND. Both the links have very good information. I am learning a lot through online articles - I did some searching a couple of months back when I started posting recipes on this blog.