Rava Dosa - Semolina Crepes

Rava Dosas are Instant. No Grinding, no pre-soaking required. I always enjoyed the Rava Dosa in the restaurants but never tried them at home. I knew you needed some practice in making Rava Dosa. So Today I mustered enough courage to try my hand at making Rava Dosa. Also I was getting ready to participate in Malar Gandhi's event "Mishaps in the kitchen". So I knew If this venture did not go well I could always send this post to her event.

The first couple Dosas were not really picture worthy. I had to scrape them off the Tava(Griddle). They tasted like Rava Dosa but did not quite look like the picture I envisioned. Also by now the kids knew there was going to be dosa for dinner. So I better start getting my act straight or cook something up real quick. Thank God it was Friday night, so no dead line for bedtime. I put the flame on slow. Then by the fourth try it did turn out a little better. I was happy and so were the kids as by now they were really hungry. Now you be the judge and tell me how they turned out.

Ingredients :

1) 1/2 cup Rava /Semolina /Sooji

2) 1/2 cup Rice flour

3) 1/4 cup Maida or All purpose flour

4) 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

5) 2 green chillies finely chopped

6) 1 teaspoon finely chopped ginger

7) pinch of hing or asofoetida

8) salt to taste

9) 3 1/2 - 4 cups water

10) oil for roasting the dosa

* You could substitute water for butter milk. This recipe is a bit forgiving as to the amount of water or butter milk you could add, since the batter is not as thick . You could compare the consistency to that of butter milk.

Preparation:

1) Mix together Rava, Maida and Rice flour . Add the water and make a batter making sure that no lumps are formed.

2)Now add the salt, hing(asofoetida), cumin seeds, chopped green chillies and chopped ginger.

3) Keep this aside for 30 minutes.

4) Heat a Dosa Tava or Griddle.

5) Mix the batter well and pour a laddle full of batter start from the outside to the inside in a circular manner. The preparation of this dosa is quite different than our regular Dosa. The way its done is you first make the outer circle of the dosa and then fill the centre with the batter. While making the Dosa keep it medium to low flame.

6) Add oil around the dosa and some oil on top of the dosa. I do make it on a high flame now for the dark golden and crispy look.

7) Once golden brown turn over and fry for another minute or so.

8) Serve hot with coconut chutney and sambhar.

Cranberry Raisin and Almond Biscotti

Ever since I saw this recipe last month on Julia Child's food show rerun on PBS, I've been dreaming about making these Biscotti. This recipe happens to be in her book, "Baking with Julia". She was a remarkable chef no doubt about it. In fact she had a guest on her show who was making these wonderful delicious Biscotti with Currants. I did not have any currants in the house so I have substituted Currants with Cranberry, Almonds and Raisins. The rest of the recipe is as is. This is my first attempt at making Biscotti. I was'nt really happy with the looks as I wanted to post this recipe on my blog. But they tasted really good and I wanted to share this reipe. I'll try it again and hopefully get some good pictures.

The word "biscotti" in Italian is the plural form of biscotto and applies to any type of biscuit (in the UK sense of a very dry, hard cookie or cracker). The word originates from the medieval Latin word biscoctus, meaning "twice-cooked/baked". To read more about Biscotti its available here .

Ingredients:

1) 1 cup all purpose flour

2) 1 cup cornmeal

3) 1 full egg and 1 yolk

4) 3/4 cup granulated sugar

5) 1 teaspoon salt

6) 1 stick unsalted butter

7) 1 cup mix of Cranberries, Raisins and Chopped Almonds

8) 1 teaspoon baking powder

* I used the Indian Head old fashioned stone ground yellow corn meal.

Preparation:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

2) Sift together All purpose flour , cornmeal , salt , and Baking Powder. Add sugar.

3) Now bring the butter to room temperature.

4) Gently crumble the butter into the flour by hand . Add the Cranberry/Raisin/Almond mixture. Add the eggs and knead into a dough.

5) Grease a cookie sheet. Now roll the dough into a log. Gently flatten it a bit. I rolled the dough into two logs. It depends on the size of the cookie sheet.

5) Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. It will still be a little soft to the touch.

6) Cool the logs . Cool it for almost 20 to 30 minutes. Transfer them carefully to a cutting board and cut them diagonally into 3/4" thick slices. Arrange the slices so as to stand them ,as if you were to make a log. Bake for another 10 minutes.

7) Ready to serve.