CHENNAI: Summer is around the corner, and most of us are trying ways and means to keep ourselves cool! For young mothers especially is a great challenge, not only to keep their young ones usefully occupied, but also give them something exciting to eat. Children need to have a variety of food, at the same time keeping nutrition in mind. What can be more versatile than a dosai, which is always a favourite with the young and old.
There are innumerable ways of making a dosai, especially for the summer, keeping taste and nutrition in mind.
While researching for my dosai book, I realised that nutritionists all over the world were of the opinion that we should combine protein with complex carbohydrates to have a balanced meal. A simple ordinary dosai made with parboiled rice, husked black gram and fenugreek seeds fulfils the need.
By using boiled rice, the dosai retains all the nutrients, especially vitamin B. Rice according to Ayurveda is a cereal, which is very easy to digest and cooling by nature! It ads to the carbohydrate content, thus giving us energy.
The protein content is contributed by the black gram dal. In fact it is the legume in the dosai batter which causes it to ferment and rise. This gives the taste and texture which has made it so popular globally! Fenugreek seeds an important ingredient has again been mentioned in Ayurvedic text as cooling food. It not only perks up the taste but also adds to the nutritive value of the dosai.
Thus dosai is a cooling food for the summer. You can make attractive red-colour dosai by adding ground tomatoes to the batter. Most children don’t want to eat vegetables, especially green leafy ones. Grind a combination of coriander leaves, curry leaves and a few mint leaves and add it to the batter to make attractive green coloured nutritious dosai.
In Karnataka they make dosai with a variety of vegetables and add interesting toppings to the dosai like finely chopped bottle gourd, ridge gourd or cucumber. Alternatively one can grind a variety of nuts and add it to the batter to make protein rich dosai.
In Andhra Pradesh, dosai is made from green gram dal. Mung is highly nutritious, tasty, easy to digest and cools the system according to Ayurveda.
So, experiment with different cereals, legumes, vegetables, nuts and seeds and create a dosai unique to your heart and family.
Chandra Padmanabhan is a cook book author of titles like ‘Dosai and Southern Spice’