Temple Prasadams ~ Azhagar Kovil Dosai / Black Gram Dosa

I was stuck in the rut while planning for the theme of 'Traditional Temple Recipes' this week. As a south Indian, the popular rice based ones kept floating in front of my eyes whenever I thought about it and in fact I even cooked a rice dish. Then to break the monotony, I decided to explore the food cooked / offered in other states' temples than trying the ones I already know about. In the process, I got lucky and came across these Azhagar kovil dosai. Honestly I had never heard about dosas being distributed as a prasad anywhere and this one seemed interesting.
These flavorful dosas are served as prasadam in Azhagar kovil, a temple dedicated to Lord Vishnu, Azhagar refers to the Lord and kovil meaning temple in Tamil. This temple is situated a few kilometers away from Madurai, Tamilnadu. Going by the posts online, I don't think this is a well known dish among the non-locals. I read somewhere that devotees from surrounding areas offer rice and pulses to the temple which in turn are made into these delicious and filling dosas. 

The dosa batter is made with rice and whole black gram and it is flavored with spices before just making dosas. I am not new to the whole urad dal dosas but I was surprised to see how the ordinary dosas were elevated in the taste and flavor departments by the addition of a few spices. They were tasting like a soft version of temple vadas because of the urad dal and the spices. We loved it so much that I have already made it twice in the past two weeks.  
Traditionally these are made into thick, crisp dosas, generously toasting with ghee. One can of course add oil to cut calories but I would highly recommend trying these dosas with ghee. It adds a huge flavor factor, making these dosas stand out. I made some dosas thinner for my husband, who likes dosas that way and for me I made thicker ones. These are spicy and flavorful enough on their own that they do not need a side dish to go with. I noticed that a chutney masks the flavors of the dosa. However if you wish to serve the dosas with chutney, you can go ahead.


Ingredients to make a dozen dosas:
1 cup rice (I used extra long grain.)
1/2 cup whole black gram / Urad dal with husk
Salt to taste
1 tsp. ginger powder / dry ginger
2 tsp. black pepper corns
1 tsp. cumin seeds
1 stalk of curry leaves
Ghee / oil to toast dosas (I recommend ghee.)

Method:
* Wash and soak urad dal for about 8 hours in water, such that it is immersed well in water, through out the soaking period. Similarly wash and soak rice for about 4 hours. Or you can soak both rice and urad dal together for about 8 hours.
* Gently rub the urad dal with fingers and discard the husk if you prefer. I decided not to do so. Grind rice and urad dal together to a consistency, thicker than regular dosas. It is ok if the batter is ground slightly coarser. 
* Transfer the batter to a large container. Add salt to the batter and mix well.
* Allow it to ferment overnight or about 6 - 8 hours depending upon the weather.
 
* Grind ginger, black pepper, cumin seeds and curry leaves coarsely.
 
* Add the ground spice powder to the fermented batter and mix well.
* Heat an iron griddle or a shallow nonstick pan. Pour a ladle-ful of batter at the center of the griddle and spread lightly.
* Keep the dosa thicker than the regular version. Drizzle ghee and cook until both sides turn golden.
* Serve them hot.

Check the blogging marathon page to see what my fellow marathoners are cooking for BM#52.

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Sunnundalu - The Two Versions and Poha Pongal

For the past one month, I was going through a 'No interest in blogging' phase. And also my busy life kept me away from blogging and blog hopping. I would like to thank all of you who kept visiting my blog. Hopefully, I would be blogging again as usual and visiting my blogger friends.

To me personally, the word 'sunnundalu' has the strong power to invoke memories, the pleasant memories of my grand mother. Sunnundalu are dear to me because they always remind me of maternal grand mother and her wonderful cooking. Also, they are the only sweets with a healthy tag attached to them, at our house. My mom never made them at home and we always got our supply of minapa sunni from our grand mother. Even at an old age, she painstakingly used to grind the uraddal in an old fashioned stone grinder and pack bottles of it to send them along with her children and grand children who visited her. The only thing her daughters had to do was adding jaggery and ghee to the ground uraddal whenever they felt like eating sunnundalu. She passed away a decade ago and the last bottle of minapa sunni she sent to my mom is still with her. My mom is holding on to it as a form of connection with her mother.


Sunnundalu belong exclusively to Andhra, I think. They are a power house of protein since the main ingredient used is uraddal - the black gram of India. This nutritious ball of uraddal flour coupled with jaggery and ghee, is a delightful dessert to kids and adults alike.
I am posting two versions of sunnundalu here. The first one is my grand mother's ofcourse. She used to use the uraddal with the husk.

Version 1 :
Ingredients to make around two dozens of small laddos:
Uraddal with husk - 1 cup
Jaggery powdered - 1/2 cup (or more if you prefer)
Melted ghee - 5 Tbsp

Method: Fry the husked uraddal on low-medium flame till it turns golden brown. Let it cool. Powder the urad dal into a coarse powder. It should resemble very fine sand. You can store it in a bottle and use it later too. This coarsely ground urad dal remains fresh for atleast a year (or more). Traditionally, urad dal is powdered using a stone grinder. I used my coffee grinder to achieve the required consistency.
Combine the powdered jaggery to it and mix it thoroughly. Add ghee little by little till the mixture comes together and you are able to form the balls out of it. Add more ghee if required. Take small portion at a time and make a round ball out of it using your hand. Repeat the same with the remaining mixture.

Version 2 :
Ingredients:
Whole uraddal - 1&1/2 cups
Powdered sugar - 1/2 cup (or more if you prefer)
Melted Ghee - 5 Tbsp


Fry the uraddal on low-medium flame till it turns golden brown. Let it cool. Powder the urad dal into a fine, coarse powder. Combine the powdered sugar to it and mix it thoroughly. Add ghee little by little till the mixture comes together and you are able to form the balls out of it. Add more ghee if required. Take small portion at a time and make a round ball out of it using your hand.

This goes to 'Favorite dessert / sweet' event hosted by Hima of 'Snackorama'.

POHA PONGAL
My observation and experience has led me to believe that poha can be a good substitute for rice in most of the rice based, Indian dishes. Poha bisibele bhath, poha payasam, mosaravalakki (yogurt poha) are some of the examples where rice is replaced by poha with out altering the taste or texture of the dish. I was wondering lately whether replacing rice with poha works in pongal and I did experiment to find out. As usual, here too poha mingled humbly with nutritious moongdal, the fragrant, savory ginger and the spicy pepper for an aromatic, mouthwatering poha pongal.

Ingredients:
Poha - 1 cup
Moong dal - 1/2 cup
Ginger (grated /finely chopped) - 1 tbsp
Ghee - 4 tsp
Pepper corns - 1/2 tsp
Pepper powder - 1/2 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Few curry leaves (optional)
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt

Fry the moongdal on medium flame till it turns slightly red. Cook it along with the water and turmeric powder in a pressure cooker till you hear two whistles. Alternatively you can cook the moongdal in a pot adding sufficient water. Keep the dal stirring in between to avoid the moong sticking to the pot at the bottom and getting burnt.

Mean while, wash the poha twice with the water and drain all the water. Cover with poha with a lid and keep aside.

Do the tadka. Heat ghee in a small pan. Add ginger, cumin seeds, pepper corns, pepper powder, curry leaves in that order. When ginger pieces turn brown, turn off the stove.

Add this tadka mixture, poha and enough salt to the cooked moongdal and stir properly with a ladle. Again turn on the stove and let this mixture / pongal simmer on low flame for about 10 minutes so that it can absorb the flavors of the spices added and poha is cooked. Stir once again and turn off the stove.

Serve hot pongal with ginger gojju or chutney. Though it is optional, Pongal is usually served with a generous serving of ghee to make it more delicious.

This goes to 'Think Spice - Ginger', hosted by Sunita of 'Sunita's world'.

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