Hi All!!
It is that time of the year when Avarekaalu is seen frequenting in the market and if I notice a good quality beans, I’ve to buy it. It so happened that I bought a big batch of the beans and my MIL got me more from Blr, so I had a lot of peeled avarekalu/mochai/ hyacinth beans at home, ready to use.
Whenever I’ve Avarekalu at home, the things regularly made are the akkitari Uppittu, avarekalu saaru and the akki rotti. Once I went more experimental and tried ambode which did turn out well. Each of these recipes have been posted step wise for people to understand it methodically. I was getting tired of going back to the same recipes again and again. It’s not that I do not like them but one needs more variety to try and savour, isn’t it? Hence, this time I decided to try new recipes using the beans and the first recipe that I laid my hands on was the avarekaalu dosa..
Recently when we had visited Blr, my elder son insisted to try out some breakfast joints and on one such occasion we tried the avarekaalu dosa, as we all love the beans. Since the joint had an open kitchen, I carefully observed how he made the dosa and during eating kept the ingredients in mind and also the flavour. The dosa we ate was a little bland for me, for my family an extra chilli and little more curry leaf flavour was required, so I kept that in my mind.
Keeping all the flavours and ingredients in mind I went ahead to make the dosa. I keep playing with my dosa batter and this time I used a different mix of lentils and rice than what I used for the shahi dosa, and I must say I loved the batter mix!! It was light to eat, crispy and the dosa crust had a beautiful colour. The dosa was very tasty but filling too, one dosa and I was done. This dosa can be made for a heavy breakfast and even for lunch too. I wouldn’t recommend it for dinner as it’s heavy to digest and one should essentially have a lighter dinner.
Avarekaalu Dosa
Preparation Time: 10hrs | Cooking Time: 3-4mins/dosa | Makes- about 10 | Serves:4-5 | Difficulty Level: Needs Skill
Ingredients
For Dosa Batter
4measures Dosa rice
1measure urad dal/ split black gram
1measure mix of masoor ( red lentils), tuvar( red gram) and chana daal (bengal gram)
a handful of poha/ beaten rice
1tsp methi/ fenugreek seeds
oil for making the dosa
For Avarekaalu mix
3cups boiled avarekaalu/ hyacinth beans
1-1/4cups steamed grated coconut
7-8 green chillies, chopped
a large handful coriander, chopped
2-3 sprigs curry leaves, chopped
3tsp mix of urad-chana daal (split black gram and Bengal gram)
salt to taste
4-5tsp oil for cooking
Method for Dosa Batter
Soak the rice, lentils and fenugreek separately for 4-5hrs and soak the beaten rice one hour before grinding.
Grind each of the ingredients to a smooth, fine paste and mix them together. Let it stand for 4-5hrs or more for fermentation. At my place it ferments in 4-5hrs.
Add salt to the batter and mix thoroughly to remove the trapped air. Also add enough water to make a thick but still a flowy batter. The batter should be of the consistency made for frying fritters
Method For Making The Avarekaalu Mix
Steam the coconut and avarekaalu separately with a little salt, till cooked and soft. It normally takes one whistle in the pressure cooker.
Heat oil and urad-chana daal mix and let it turn golden in colour. Add the green chillies and sauté for a few seconds. Now add the chopped curry leaves.
Add the steamed avarekaalu, coconut and salt to taste and cook together for a few minutes. Finally add the chopped coriander and give a final mix. Cool the mix. This mix can be eaten by itself too without the dosa batter.
Method for making Avarekaalu Dosa
Heat the griddle and season it properly with oil. Sprinkle some water to bring down the temperature if the griddle’s very hot.
Take a large ladle full of batter and put it on the griddle. Take a handful of the mix and put it on the batter. Dip hand in water and press the batter to spread evenly and give a round shape. This step has to be done very fast as it becomes difficult to spread the batter once it starts cooking.
If you like a thin dosa only, in that case spread the dosa thin using the ladle in concentric circles and very quickly spread the avarekaalu mix on it. Gently tap lightly to fix the beans on the batter. In this case flipping can become difficult so cover the dosa for a minute and cook only on one side.
Turn the dosa to cook the avarekaalu side once one side is cooked. Put a little more oil around the edges. Flipping can be avoided too in that case after spreading the dosa cover it with a lid and cook.
Serve the dosa with coconut chutney.
Winner Of ‘Only’ Event For September
Please accept my apologies for the delay in announcing the winner. Since I was on a vacation, hence could not do it. Based on the event round up by Sushma, I’ve used the random pick to select the winner. There were 7 contributor’s other than me and Sushma and the winner is the 7th contributor ‘Budding Homemaker’, who is new to the blogging world. Congrats budding homemaker. Please contact me at cookingoodfood@gmail.com within two days to claim your win.
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Another way of soaking sago which I normally follow and was taught to me by my Grand Mom’s sis is as follows…Rinse the sago thoroughly 3-4 times. Pour water in it such that it has water filled up completely soaking the sago. Keep it half an hour and not more. After that place a big plate on the container containing sago and invert the container and remove all the excess water. Leave the container inverted for 4-5hrs. 
. After flipping through some old Good food magazines, I picked up Camellia Panjabi’s 50 Great Curries Of India and I was so happy reading all of them, all over again. While I read, I landed on a recipe of lamb cooked in Pickled spices. After reading the recipe I was too tempted to try it in a vegetarian way. I asked myself, people make achaari paneer, achaari aloo, achaari bhindi, why can’t I try the spices with chickpeas? The thought itself exhilarated me and believe me friends I needed that sense of elation desperately, with all the pressure around. The thought was so intoxicating that I immediately went ahead and searched for all the spices and other ingredients. I realized that a skerrick of an ingredient was not available in the desired amount required for the recipe; I was short of yogurt, so I immediately searched for tomatoes and was happy to see a few of them sitting pretty in the refrigerator. 
