Truth be told, growing up in Seremban, Dosai (aka Dosa) was never on my radar. (Though, in my defence, I can’t be the only Malaysian who’s all about roti canai when eating breakfast at a mamak stall.)
Times have changed however, and we now eat dosai at home practically every day (by “we”, I mean Paul and Noah – I might indulge a couple of times a week).
For a long time, we relied on store-bought dosai batter, which you can find in the refrigerated section of Indian grocery stores. Over time, though, we noticed the prices kept creeping up, and the results were inconsistent— (though this could be a rookie error by our in-house dosai expert, Paul, who always struggled to spread the batter evenly on the pan).
The tipping point came when, out of desperation, we bought some batter from a small store—where the price was even higher than usual—and it simply didn’t work. I know, I know (you’ll hear me say this in the video replay below), the tub was labelled “Idli Batter” instead of the usual “Dosa/Idli Batter.” But in theory, both idli and dosai use the same ingredients (I learned this years ago from South Indian food blogger Divya), so we decided to take a chance after confirming with the shop owner. Unfortunately, our dosai attempts with the idli batter were a failure.
I finally decided to have a go at making dosai batter at home, and since I have a Thermomix with a Cookidoo subscription, I used one of the built-in Cookidoo recipes for dosai. I’m an impatient cook, and I like hacking recipes to simplify them —years of being a restaurant owner and bottleneck in my own kitchen will do that to you – so, after some experimenting (some of it AFTER the broadcast above), here’s the recipe, with my hacks –
Homemade Dosai (Thermomix) – Simplified
For the Batter –
250g uncooked rice (OR optionally 150g uncooked rice + 100g uncooked “Raw” rice – watch the recording for details)
100g urad dhal (skin off)
600g water
1 tsp salt
30g (1 TBSP) cooked rice
For cooking –
Ghee
METHOD:
- Combine ALL ingredients in the Thermomix mixing bowl.
- Cover and blend 4 minutes at Speed 9.
- Switch to Fermentation Mode (TM6), set temperature at 40C and fermentation time at 12 hours.
- Remove and transfer into a tub (we use large glass jars), and store in fridge until ready for use.
- To cook dosai, use a flat pan, brush lightly with ghee and heat pan on high, then reduce temperature to low-medium (Paul uses 5 on our stove, I prefer 6 because I’m impatient).
- Pour a ladle of batter on the pan, then swirl to make a thin crepe. Dot with more ghee on the surface and around the edges if you like.
- Cook, uncovered, on one side, until crispy and golden brown – this will take at least 6 minutes. Don’t be impatient or you’ll end up with soft dosai.
- Remove gently with spatula, rolling it from one side to the other.
- Serve with your favourite dips.
OTHER TIPS:
- I now double the recipe above because we go through so much batter. The Thermomix jug isn’t big enough to hold it all once it ferments (it increases in bulk), so I split the batter into two large glass jars and place them in the oven with the lids slightly off. I set the oven to “dough proving” mode at 40°C for 10 minutes. The oven switches off after that, but I leave the jars in for the next 12 hours. This step isn’t essential—if you don’t have a TM6 or an oven with that function, you can just leave the batter to ferment at room temperature.
- “Raw” rice is a type of rice used in Indian cooking, and you can find it at Indian grocery stores. It’s typically used to achieve fluffy textures, which isn’t ideal for dosai, but I accidentally used it in an early batch and Paul found that it helped the batter spread better without making the dosai too fluffy.
- The original Cookidoo recipe called for “long grain rice” but we eat jasmine rice at home, so that’s what I’ve been using. Works fine.
- For a quick sweet snack, sprinkle some sugar on the dosai as it cooks.
- The fermentation time affects how sour the batter tastes. The dosai I’ve had in Malaysia is less sour than what you get here in Sydney. In fact, I used to make a version of dosai with no fermentation when I first started running my market stall at Orange Grove Farmer’s Market back in the early 2000s; I put it down to my early ignorance of Indian cuisine until I recently saw another Indian Malaysian cook share her own dosai batter recipe – also unfermented – so there you go, it does exist, though I do prefer to ferment it nowadays.
- In my earlier experiment (you’ll see this in the video), I soaked both the rice and urad dhal together in the Thermomix mixing bowl, cutting the soaking time by 75% by using the Fermentation Mode for one hour. But my latest hack is to skip the soaking altogether—just throw everything in and blitz it, then ferment. The batter will be slightly more granular, but the end result is the same once cooked. You can blitz for an extra minute if you prefer a smoother batter.
Final Thoughts
With these techniques and a Thermomix, we now create excellent dosai at home for a fraction the cost of the store-bought version.
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Also, fun fact – a lot of Asian recipes on the Cookidoo platform can be simplified. Join my Thermomix WhatsApp community to keep up with my TM adventures – https://chat.whatsapp.com/LskIaYfn9Qy1p7ePMq4dBF (don’t forget to mute notifications so you don’t rage quit from oversharing by some of the members).
Our homemade dosai – batter by yours truly, cooked by Paul Gray –