Showing posts with label pancakes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pancakes. Show all posts

Friday, February 24, 2012

Taste & Create: Rawa Dosai

Dosa are something I first tried in India last year... to an untrained, Western eye they're basically delicious, savoury pancake. When Taste & Create, which is my favourite monthly blog event, paired me with Jayasri Ravi of Samayal Arai this month I was super excited to see her Dosa Section, and I immediately hopped on over to have a look.

Most dosa recipe than Jayasri has listed require several hours fermentation which put me off in this instance - simply because I decided, about two hours before teatime that I wanted to make dosa to serve alongside. Here, it should be noted that dosa are primarily a breakfast food, I think, so usually you'd make them the night before and let 'em sit over night.

The recipe I chose to try out was for Rawa Dosai - I think 'rawa' is the term used to describe grains once ground into a flour-like consistency... but I'm totally unsure about that! We had most of the ingredients already, because we do eat a lot of Indian (or, more accurately, Indian-style) food at home - but if you don't, and I don't expect many students would... it'd be well worth going to your supermarket or local Indian market and trying to source them - these dosa are divine!

Rawa Dosai, served with a Goan-Style fish curry.
I did learn, after my very, very pale first several that it's vitally important to get the pan really, really hot before you try to cook these. Leave your impatience at the door when you enter the kitchen to cook dosa!

I was excited because I was able to cook these on our tawa - a flat, side-less frying pan, which meant I was the first to use it for it's intended purpose, but any frying pan will do - just as long as you can pick it up and swirl it! :)

A real, live, tawa... :)
These were great, and we'll definitely make them again... and, one day when I'm a bit more organised, I'll try out some of the other varieties too!


Thursday, February 23, 2012

Thin (Dessert) Pancakes (for Breakfast)

Made in India and served with fruit, cream and honey on my 20th Birthday...
I love,  love pancakes they're one of my top five favourite foodstuffs of all time (along with spinach, olives, ice-cream and whatever happens to be flavour-of-the-month)!! However although I love all pancakes in all their different incarnations at all times (buckwheat, crepe, American stacking, buttermilk, dosa... etc...) my favourite way of the moment varies. Currently, it's super fluffy buttermilk that I crave... when this photo was taken (and post intended to be posted) *gulp* over a year ago in India I loved thin, tender, almost crepe like pancakes.

This kind of pancake is often presented as a dessert pancake, I guess because it is more delicate than it's fluffier cousins? The batter needs to sit for at least an hour to allow the gluten in the flour to soften which results in a more tender pancake. I like to make my batter the night before (or morning before - if you're making dessert) just to be sure to be sure...

Also - don't let the fruity presentation of this post or the term "dessert" pancake blind you! There's no sugar in  this recipe - and I have been know to make these for breakfast and then keep some over to make Enchiladish later, using the now "savoury" pancakes in place of the traditional tortillas... Just make a basic chilli (or bolognese for an Italian feel...) roll the pancakes up with a little filling and place into a baking dish, seam side down, pour over a little tomato paste or pasta sauce, sprinkle some cheese on and bake at 200 until heated through and the cheese is bubbling. Yum. Yum!

OM NOM NOM NOM!!!
That's enough chat... time for the recipe, I feel.


Monday, February 14, 2011

Delicious, Sustaining Protien Pancakes


Delicious AND Nutritious! (Sorry... I couldn't resist...)


Right, now that my interwebs are up and running... I hope to be back with a vengence! This is a recipe I've wanted to put up for y'all for a while now, and it's the second to last one from last year's flat ever to be posted!

Protien-Packed Pancakes. These are pretty neat because they're filling, sustaining, essentially sugar-free (before tinned peaches and maple syrup, at least...) and PANCAKES! My second favourite food after spinach and before ice-cream...

It is, I believe, the addition of protien-rich cottage cheese which makes this delicious breakfast so sustaining. The oats add fibre, and the addition of fruit sweetness and flavour. One batch will feed my boyfriend and me for 2-3 breakfasts depending on how hungry we are!

With the traditional maple syrup and tinned peach combo...

Recipe follows >>>