We are very lucky to know many fantastic cooks! As you might expect, Popo and Dadi (our grandmothers) make delicious food. In addition, our friend and neighbor, Ms. Madhu makes the BEST dosas outside of India. If you don’t know what a dosa is it is: simply think of it as spicy potatoes and onions being a rolled up crispy thin bread. It is fairly large.
Ms. Madhu needs to make the batter ahead of time. She makes the batter using two fancy machines. The second machine is one that grinds the flour that dosa is made with:
She also has the potato filling and the sambar already prepared.The Potato Filling is slightly spicy and the sambar is equally spicy, having no lumps.
With all the preparations, she then makes each dosa individually. And we eat them while they are hot. If you have ever seen French crepes or galletes being made, it is very similar. This is a video of Ms. Madhu making the dosa.
Madhu making dosas at her house
This is a picture of the dosa and sambar. As many of you know, Indian food comes with different kinds of chutney. Ms. Madhu makes her own gunpowder chutney. This is a picture of all our delicious food. This one is of a dosa with a bowl of sambar. Sambar is a spicy Indian soup that one has with dosas.
The second picture is of raita. Raita is a yogurt sauce.
Ms. Madhu also makes her own gunpowder chutney and ghee. Ghee is clarified butter. Remember, as our friends at the Cordon Bleu school taught us: Butter is good, Butter is fat, Fat is our friend!!
This is Omkar. He is Ms.Madhu’s son. He reads a lot of books and is very intelligent! He is four years old.
Overall, our meal was delicious. Special thanks to Ms.Madhu and Omkar!!! 🙂
As usual our rating consists out of five stars with five being the highest.
Rating: 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
WE LOVE HOMEMADE FOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That looks really delicious.
I prefer my butter clarified.
It is DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!
We prefer the butter clarified most of the time too!!!!!!
what’s in gunpowder chutney?
everything looks so delicious. will you be making some dosa at home soon??
Gunpowder chutney is AMAZING! It is spicy, salty, and when you mix it with ghee it is the perfect consistency. We don’t know what Ms. Madhu puts in it. It might be a secret. . . . .
Or maybe Ms. Madhu can elaborate on it when she sees this post/comment. Please, Ms. Madhu???
And dosas are MUCH too hard to make. Only amazing chefs like Ms. Madhu can make it properly!!!
why is it called gunpowder? it sounds so interesting! does it explode in your mouth?
Gunpowder chutney is an explosion of flavors and that is why it is called gunpowder chutney and it is DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m also curious about gunpowder chutney — intriguing name. Is it something available at most Indian restaurants?
Great post — you are lucky to have such a talented neighbor.
It is available at some Indian restaurants.
Probably close to 50%, 50%.
Thank you and we will tell her that.
Gunpowder Chutney seems to be an American nickname for something that is traditionally called either dosa-chilly powder or simply dosa powder. Its technically a dry chutney and traditionally goes with Idlis and dosas, although we use it for everything, including on bread. It tastes yummy with ghee (as someone said) and with sesame oil. Its not a secret recipe, although it is one of those things that taste slightly different every batch I make because I’m an eyeballing cook, and an absent minded grocery shopper.
This is the gist of the recipe – 1 cup of red chillies (with the stems off), 1/2 cup of chana dal (bengal gram), 1/2 cup of urad dal (black dal), 1/4 to 1/2 cup of white sesame seeds, a marble sized chunk of asafoetida or if you are using powder – a good teaspoonful, salt to taste (it takes a fair amount – taste and measure).
Heat the sesame seeds in a dry pan until they start to pop, set aside. Then in about a tsp of your normal cooking oil (or ideally sesame oil), fry the urid dal and the chana dal till golden, Since their frying times may be different and the visual indicators will certainly be different because of their original colors, I would suggest you each separately, but i’m usually in a hurry and do them together. Then make sure you are ventilated and fry the red chillies in a tsp of oil till they are dark but not black. If you use chunky asafoetida, you have to roast that too till it turns into a puffy large form. Then you use something like a coffee grinder or anything that pulverizes and start with your red chillies because they need to get fairly fine and when they look powdered, add the rest of the stuff and coarsely grind. Different families, people have favorite granularities, so there’s no exact fineness. I go for sandy with a few larger pieces..I also add a marble sized piece of jaggery when pulverizing, it adds a nice contrast.
Hope some of that made sense, just try it – and vary the spice level if you need to.
Thank you for clarifying and for the delicious recipe. We will try to make it.
Hopefully, we will see you soon. We miss Omkar!