Horse Gram Dosas / Ulava Dosalu

South Indian breakfast dishes are preferred over bread / cereal any given day in our home and I therefore keep rotating them. However idlis and dosas, which everyone seem to like mostly contain rice and I am trying to make them a tad healthier. Over the recent years, I have started to substitute a healthy ingredient for a portion of the rice in those recipes. Today's recipe is such one though a traditional one to make idlis and I make dosas with it as well. 

Horse gram, though chiefly is horse fodder as the name suggests is beneficial to humans as well as it is rich in iron. It is being used in Indian cuisine from a long time though not used as extensively as the other beans. Here is one way to include these in the diet if interested. One cannot miss the distinct flavor of horse gram, when tasting the dishes made with this bean. If one is bothered about it, serve these dosas with a coconut chutney / sambhar instead of dry spice powders which masks the flavor.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup horse gram / kulthi
1/2 cup skinned black gram / urad dal
1/2 cup idli rava
Salt to taste 
Any neutral flavored oil to make dosas 

Directions:
* Rinse horse gram and black gram with water thoroughly and drain. Soak them together in water for at least 3 hours, such that water level is at least two or three inches higher than the ingredients during the soaking period. 
* Similarly rinse idli rava and soak separately, covered in enough water.
* After the soaking period, drain the water completely from beans and rava containers. Add all the soaked and drained ingredients to a blender and grind into a thick, smooth batter adding salt and enough water. The batter should not be too runny. 
* Pour the batter into a container, with some extra space to allow the fermented batter to rise. Cover the container and leave it in a warm place overnight or for at least 8 hours or more depending upon the local weather to ferment. 
* Heat a tawa / flat non stick griddle when ready to make dosas. Stir the fermented batter once with a ladle. Pour a ladleful (about 1/4 cup) of batter at the center of the griddle and quickly spread it thinly with the back of the ladle. Pour 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. oil around the edges (I use very less oil.) 
* Cook until the bottom side is done and the surface no longer looks wet. Flip it with a spatula and cook the other side as well for few seconds. Transfer the cooked dosa onto a plate and repeat the dosa making process with the remaining batter. 
* Serve them warm with coconut chutney or any other spicy chutney.

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