Whole Kambu (pearl millet) Dosai

Millet offers a variation from the regular rice, wheat back to rice routine. I read that 90% of our time is spent indoors under artificial lights and mostly sitting doing sedentary jobs which means eating a lot of rice and wheat is not necessarily the best. So to mix it up a little bit I like to add some millet to our diet and hopefully to tackle the ever expanding mid section :(

While the recipe I have here is the way I know in which kambu dosai is made with the addition of spices. I wanted to change the recipe around a little bit so that it is similar to the regular dosai recipe. Since millet is also carbohydrate rich I add more lentils to get a crispy dosai.

Normally I use whole kambu for this but i have a couple of packets of broken kambu and I used that since i was not going to make porridge with the broken kambu.

Soak the pearl millet, rice, lentils and fenugreek seeds overnight.
Grind the fenugreek seeds and white lentils till it is smooth and fluffy. Remove it to a separate vessel.
Grind the pearl millet and when it is getting smooth add in the rice and grind till it is completed smooth.
Remove it to the vessel along with the lentil batter.
set the batter to ferment overnight. Once fermented mix it with a laddle so the batter looks smooth and is ready for use.
Heat a griddle and add a laddle of batter and spread it into circle. Flip on cook on the other side.

Kambu dosai batter made with whole kambu and plenty of lentils is much lighter and crispier.

Kambu Dosai
Soaking Time: 8 hours or overnight
Batter Grinding Time: 40 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

1. 2 1/2 cups of kambu (pearl millet)
2. 1 1/2 cups of idli rice
3. 1 1/2 cups of whole urad dal (white lentils)
4. 2 tbsp of fenugreek seeds
5. salt to taste
For the Dosai
6. Oil

Batter Preparing

1. Wash the kambu in several changes of water and let it soak overnight. Wash and soak the rice and lentils. Soak the fenugreek seeds.
2. Grind the soaked fenugreek seeds and when it is looks almost blended add the lentils to it and blend to a smooth batter, remove to a vessel. I let the grinder run for about 20 minutes.
3. Next add the soaked millet and let it grind till most of the millet has been blended, add the rice to this and continue to grind till it becomes a smooth batter.
4. Remove the millet rice batter to the lentil batter, add salt and mix it well and leave it overnight to ferment.
5. Note:Where it is cold and fermenting is a problem, put it in the oven or microwave with the light oven overnight and it should ferment nicely.

Method

1. Heat a dosai pan or griddle, wipe some oil on it with some cloth.
2. Add a laddle of batter and spread it in a circle.
3. Add oil along the edges of the dosai, let it cook on one side and then flip and cook on the other side.

Serve with chutney of choice.

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