I love Fridays!
No, not because it’s the weekend. It’s not for me, and never has been. Journalists don’t have weekends. Not with the Social Media mob snapping at their heels. We’ve had to stay ahead of the perpetrators.
Fridays are my ‘dosa’ day (rice pancakes).
That’s a lie. Every day is ‘dosa’ day for me.
But on Friday I get to try out a different ‘dosa’ to the ones I have on weekdays.
Different? How different can a ‘dosa’ be?
I’ll tell you.
These culinary wonders which are believed to have its origin as far back at the 1st Century AD, come in a variety of styles.
Ok, at the end of the day they are all made from rice and black gram, otherwise known as Vigna mundo. It’s a combination of urad bean, ulundu paruppu, minapa pappu, mungo bean or black matpe bean.
I did not know this, but I learnt it from Wikipedia.
But what the heck, who cares what ‘dosa’s’ are made of? They taste so good. So good that I have them for breakfast almost every single day.
I’ve been eating dosas for as long as I can remember. I must have eaten a million by now. Plain dosas, masala dosas, Mysore masala dosas. Ghee roast, onion dosas – the works.
But honestly, the best of the lot is the masala dosa and if you like your dosa a little more spicy and big in taste, then it’s the Mysore Masala Dosa, which is heavenly.
So on Friday’s I normally look for a place that makes a good Mysore Masala Dosa, and that would have to be a restaurant with a cook trained in Udupi-style dosa making. Not a YouTube graduate, but an authentic cook from South India.
And you don’t have too many of them in Dubai or the UAE for that matter. They prefer to stay back in India and work at a restaurant that sells dosas by the truck loads.
These guys are so into making dosas that they can do it blind-folded, and they never fail to get it right, every time.
The colour, the crispiness, the texture, the taste.
I love my dosa made on the slightly crispy side, not too crispy like a papadam, but with the right crunch that get when you bite into it. Heavenly.
However, the key to a successful dosa specialty restaurant, is a good chutney (sauce). A bad chutney can ruin your meal.
A lot of restaurants don’t give chutney making the required attention it deserves. It has to have everything right – the consistency, taste, colour. And of course the ingredients.
Personally, I like my chutneys to be a little on the thick side. A watery chutney will ruin the crispiness of my dosa.
So even as you read this, I’ve probably enjoyed another fantastic Mysore Masala Dosa, remember it’s Friday, and dosa day, with a difference.
Tomorrow is also dosa day, and the day after, and the day after, day after.
