A - Z Karnataka Recipe Series ~ D for Davanagere Benne Dose

So far in my A - Z Karnataka Series
A - Akki Halbai
B - Biscuit Roti
C - Congress Kadalekayi

The letter 'D' in my series stands for dose or to be precise, gari - gari benne dose. The crispy butter dose from Davanagere, a city in Karnataka.  I thought the dish for 'D' gas been sorted out more than a year ago when I took pictures of a dish my Kannadiga sister in law was cooking. It was an authentic, traditional recipe unique to the state and I had saved it in the hopes of using it when I do a series on Karnataka food. I know I sound crazy when putting it that way. Guess what when the time came for the 'D' recipe, this lady went looking for other options, sounds more crazier, I am sure. 

'D' stands for the word 'Dhaanya' meaning grains in Kannada which forms the basis of any cooking. I could have cooked something with donne menasinakayi (capsicum), doddapatre (Mexican mint), dantu soppu (Amaranth greens), drakshi (grapes) or dalimbe (pomegranate.) and my 'D' dish would have been ready. There was Konkani duddhali which is prepared along the same lines of a halbai and so it did not even come to my consideration. 

The two options that were on the top of my list happened to be  calorie laden, mouth watering delicacies - Benne dose which has become synonymous with a city in the central part of the state called Davanagere or a melt in mouth peda, again synonymous with the city in which it was originated, Dharwad from Northern Karnataka. Not exaggerating, Dharwad peda is one of the popular sweets of the state with it's own GI tag and a history of 175 years. The secretly guarded recipe originated in the city of Dharwad, concocted by a family that had migrated from Uttar Pradesh. May be it's nostalgia or I am biased, the real version is a treat and the rest doesn't meet the standards. 

The benne dose has not been posted yet on my blog which came handy now and became my "D ' dish. Besides I wanted to post one dose recipe in this series from the state which has given so many iconic dose recipes to the world like masala dose, Mysore masala dose, set dose and such. I have never eaten these benne dose in the town they originated in but I knew what makes it benne dose, Davanagere style. The side dishes to go with this dose are a bland, colorless potato curry along with a fiery coconut chutney prepared adding cardamom as well. Believe it or not, the curry and chutney complement each other well and one wouldn't notice the blandness of the curry. The dose usually served as a set of two unless specifically ordered as a single benne dose. They are not large sized as masala dose, and are soft and crisp at the same time. The dosas are cooked in loads of white butter and ghee and served again with a lump of butter on the top. 

Pronunciation:
Davanagere is a city in the central part of Karnataka state. The part 'Davana' is pronounced as the Hindu mythological character 'Ravana'. The 'da' sound is as in the name 'Damini'. And the part 'ge' as in the word 'get' and 're' as 'ray'.  
Benne means butter in Kannada. (pronounced like benn-a, stressing on the 'n' sound. The 'n' sound here is not the soft one that comes after alphabet 'dha' in south Indian languages but the one that comes after 'da' alphabet.). 
Dose is a 'Kannada' word for south Indian style pancakes and is pronounced as 'though - say'. Dose can be singular or plural.

I came across an article here which came handy for this dose preparation, which gave me hotel style butter dosas which I have always thought was impossible to create at home. The recipe makes superb dosas even in case if it is not authentic as the original version that was created. Whereas this article talks about the origins and gives some more tidbits about the preparation. According to it, benne dose originated in Mahadevappa benne dosa hotel, which opened in 1928 in Davanagere. The third generation of the family is running the business now and the owner's grandfather's family had moved from a village in Belagavi / Belgaum to Davangere in 1927 after a severe drought in their region. The grandmother, named Chennamma who happened to be a good cook started selling ghee dosas made with finger millet and other snacks near a drama theater which gave them enough patronage. When it was time for her sons to take over the business after a decade or so, the menu changed from her ragi / fingermillet ghee dosas to rice based dosas and as they say, the rest is history. Those dosas went on to became popular as benne dose in the entire state. Even though they don't divulge in the secrets of the trade, it seems that they use a particular brand of rice called Jaya brand, use butter prepared in a special method and used to cook over wood fire. Only potato, onion and salt go into the curry. No chillies or tempering are used and not even turmeric for a hint of color. They add byadagi and Guntur variety dried red chillies for the chutney recipe though most of the other restaurants use green chillies. Also the chutney uses only cardamom as the first article mentions which is an unusual addition to the coconut chutney. I have seen online versions where clove and even cinnamon have been included in the chutney recipe. 

1 cup = 235 ml
Ingredients for dose:
2 cups rice / akki  *
1/2 cup skinned black gram / uddina bele / urad dal
1 tsp. fenugreek seeds / menthya / methi daana
1 cup puffed rice / mandakki / murmura
2 tbsp. all purpose flour / maida
2.5 tsp. salt
About 1 and 3/4 to 2 cups water to grind
1/4 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. baking soda
Butter and ghee to make dosas

* Any rice can be used. Even cheaper variety rice can be used in the dosa preparation and I usually go with extra long grain rice. The recipe makes at least 2 batches of dosas for a family of four and so the batter covers two days of breakfast. It can be used to make regular dosas or uttapams. The ingredients can be halved or doubled depending upon the quantity of the dosa batter one needs.

Ingredients for potato curry:
4 big sized potato (About 3 cups chopped)
1 tbsp. oil or as needed
2 red onions, finely chopped
Salt to taste

Ingredients for coconut chutney:
1 cup shredded fresh / frozen coconut
Green chillies to taste
Salt to taste
Seeds from 1 cardamom

Preparing dosa batter:
Dosa batter needs advance preparation. If one needs to make dosas for breakfast then the ingredients need to be soaked by mid morning or afternoon the previous day. It needs to be ground by evening (or afternoon if living a cold place) and allowed to ferment overnight or a few hours extra depending upon where one lives. The standard 8 hour fermentation rule apply only if one lives in warmer areas. I soak the ingredients around 11 am and grind by 3 pm during winters, leave it to ferment in a warm place and make dosas around 7 am next morning. My batter takes double the time to ferment. In the recent years, I have started to leave my batter container on a heating vent which works perfectly fine. I set even the yogurt that way. Or one can leave the covered batter container in an oven, keeping the light on. Just remember not to turn on the oven.  

Steps:
1. Rinse rice, black gram and fenugreek seeds with water twice and drain. Wash the puffed rice in a colander and drain the water. (If any of the ingredients being used contain stones or any other things need to be picked, do so before soaking.) Add all the rinsed ingredients in a container and soak them in water. Add enough water so that water level is at least 2 inches higher than the ingredients. Let them soak at least for 3.5 to 4 hours. 

2. One can use the soaked water to grind the batter or drain and use fresh batch of water. I prefer the latter method. Whatever method is preferred, use as much water as needed to grind into a smooth, thick batter. The batter shouldn't be too runny. If not sure how much water is needed, drain all the water used to soak the ingredients and follow according to the given measurement. One can even collect the drained water into a container and use it if preferring that way.

Add the drained rice, black gram, fenugreek, puffed rice, all purpose flour and water as needed to grind the batter in either a wet grinder or a mixie. If living in a cold place, add salt as well while grinding. (I used a little less than 2 cups of water to grind in my 14 speed Oster blender but the batter can be ground using less water in a grinder. If using a mixer / mixie, the ingredients may need to be ground in two batches since the quantity is more.)

3. Transfer the smooth and thickly ground batter to a container with space enough for the batter to rise during fermentation. Cover the container and leave in a warm place  overnight or until fermented. When ready to make dose, add sugar and baking soda to the fermented batter (or to the portion of the batter that is going to be used) and mix well. (Salt need to be added as well if it was not added during grinding.)

4. Heat a cast iron or non stick pan on medium flame until drops of water sprinkled over it sizzles and evaporates. No need to bring it to a smoking point. Pour a ladleful of batter and lightly spread. One can spread the batter thinner too. I poured a little ghee around the edges of the dose which is optional. 

5. Let it cook until the raw batter is no longer seen / dose appears dry on the surface. Spread blobs of butter over the surface and lightly spread when it is melting. Cook until the butter melts, fold and remove. (The dose can be flipped and cooked the other side too for few seconds and I didn't do it.)

6. Repeat the dose making steps with the remaining batter. 

Preparation of aloogadde palya:
* Peel the potatoes and cut into big chunks. Pressure cook them adding water for 2 or 3 whistles. When the valve pressure is gone, drain the potatoes and mash them. 
* Meanwhile, heat oil in a pan and add chopped onions and fry them until translucent. (Some skip the frying part and boil the onions in water and drain.) Add mashed potatoes and salt to the pan. Mix well and turn off the stove. 

Preparation of kaayi chutney:
* Add all the ingredients mentioned under chutney and grind fine adding enough water to make a thick chutney. The chutney is supposed to be spicy but one can adjust the spice levels according to taste. 

* Serve the hot benne dose with palya and chutney.

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