Crisp Instant Rava Dosa

First, a word on this dish

If you have ever wanted dosa on a day when you did not plan ahead, rava dosa is the answer. A classic dosa batter asks you to soak rice and urad dal for hours and let the mixture ferment overnight, so you have to start the day before. Rava dosa skips all of that. You stir semolina (rava) and rice flour into a thin batter with buttermilk or yogurt, rest it for twenty to thirty minutes, and cook. That is why it is also called an instant dosa.
The cooking is different too, so do not expect it to behave like the fermented kind. A fermented batter sits thick in the middle of the pan and gets spread outward from a ladle. Rava dosa batter is deliberately thin, nearly watery, and you pour it from the edges inward, which is what creates the holes and the irregular, lacy surface. If your first one tears when you lift it, that is common, because it is more delicate than its fermented cousin. It depends more on a hot pan and a light touch than on skill with the ladle.
Treat the first dosa as a test. The heat of the pan and the thinness of the batter both take a try or two to judge, and the first one tells you what to change. By the third, most cooks have found the rhythm, and each dosa after that comes off the pan far more easily.

The story behind the dish

Rava dosa is a restaurant dish from the twentieth century, not a long-standing home recipe. The Udupi hotels of coastal Karnataka, which also made masala dosa a standard, usually get the credit. They wanted a dosa-style item that skipped fermentation so it could be turned out to order quickly. From South Indian restaurant menus in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu it reached home kitchens, and now you will see it on tiffin menus nationwide: plain, with onion and green chilli, or with vegetables in the batter. Since it is recent and commercial, there is little argument over where it came from, but nobody has documented precisely who made the first one.

The method, in order

1. Prep

   Whisk the flours into the buttermilk

   Put the semolina, rice flour and all-purpose flour in a large bowl, pour in the buttermilk and about a cup of water, and whisk until you cannot see any dry flour. Do not be shocked by how thin it looks. Think thin cream, not pancake batter.

2. Prep

   Let the batter sit

   Let the bowl stand for 20 to 30 minutes. Nothing ferments in that time. The semolina is simply drinking up liquid and swelling, and that decides how the batter spreads and how well it crisps. If you cook straight away, the middle of the dosa tastes gritty even though the rim looks crisp.

3. Prep

   Add the seasonings and loosen the batter

   Add the cumin, pepper, green chillies, ginger, curry leaves, onion if you use it, coriander and salt. Then pour in the remaining water slowly while stirring. Lift a spoon and tip it: the batter should fall in an even, unbroken ribbon, not drop in blobs. Getting this right matters more than anything else for lacy dosas.

4. Cook

   Heat the griddle until it is really hot

   Place the griddle over medium-high heat and wait until a drop of water vanishes with a hiss within a second or two. Rava batter has no fermentation to help it set, so it needs more heat than a fermented batter does. A cast-iron tawa takes longer to warm up than a thin non-stick pan, so allow it a few extra minutes before you test.

5. Cook

   Pour from the rim toward the centre

   Stir the batter every time you reach for it, as the flours settle quickly. Then, working fast, pour a thin stream from the outer rim of the pan toward the middle in a spiral. Let it fall into whatever shape it makes, with no ladle to spread it. There will be holes, and they are what you are after.

6. Cook

   Drizzle with oil and cook until golden and lacy

   Pour a generous amount of oil or ghee over the dosa and around its rim. Let it cook for 2 to 3 minutes over medium-high heat without touching it. It is ready when it is golden, crisp and lacy, and the edges curl and loosen from the pan.

7. Cook

   Use a thin spatula and go slowly

   Rava dosa breaks more readily than a regular one because of all the holes, so slide a thin spatula underneath a little at a time, working from the edge inward, instead of flipping it in one swoop. Most restaurants never flip it at all. One side cooked until crisp is enough, and that is the way to go if yours keeps tearing.

8. Serve

   Fold and serve right away

   Fold the dosa into quarters or a half-moon and carry it to the table at once, with coconut chutney and sambar. This is the kind of dish that you cook to order, one dosa at a time, so that whoever is eating gets it straight from the pan. A dosa that waits on a plate loses its crunch faster than a fermented one does.

Ingredient stand-ins

No buttermilk? Thin plain yogurt with water, or use water with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and accept less tang. Several South Indian brands sell a ready rava dosa mix, which only needs water and seasoning. Vegetable versions can include grated carrot or finely chopped capsicum, as long as the pieces are small enough to let the thin batter run through the holes.

Making it milder or fiercer

The batter is mild on purpose, taking its flavour mostly from cumin, pepper and curry leaves, not from chilli. To make it spicier, add more green chilli and a pinch of red chilli powder to the batter, or dust a little chilli powder over the oiled surface just before it sets. To make it gentler, leave out the green chilli and black pepper and rely on cumin and curry leaves alone. Serve a hotter chutney on the side so the heat stays optional at the table.

Storing what is left

Fridge or counter: Uncooked batter keeps for up to 2 days in a sealed container in the refrigerator. It thickens as it stands, so loosen it with a little water and taste it again before cooking, since chilling can dull the salt and chilli. Unlike regular dosa batter, it does not ferment or improve with age, so there is nothing to gain by making it earlier than you need. Cooked rava dosas do not store or hold well, and they should be made to order.

Bringing it back to life: A cooked rava dosa does not reheat well. The lacy structure dries to leather in the microwave, and a hot pan merely warms it through. Use leftovers differently, torn up and crisped in a pan with chutney powder for a snack.