Chola Dosai / Sorghum Dosa / Jowar Dosa / Jonnalu Dosa

My mom used to get 3 long vacations per year. During
her last vacation, she came to Chennai to stay with us. I usually don’t
enter into the kitchen when she is with me and she will take care of
the kitchen till her stay. She used to prepare many dishes what I have had during my childhood days. I enjoyed all the food she prepared that time and got a chance to click only one which is in
front of you now.

My Mom and my grandma know many recipes using whole grains and even today they have been preparing it. She used to soak sorghum only for 2 hours, put it in a mixie to make a powder of it and then add it to the raw rice while grinding. Generally grinding sorghum in wet grinder takes long time and needs extra soaking time and care. So, she follows this way which she came across over a period.

Basic Information:

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Idle time:  2 hours or 8 hours (see notes)

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

Sorghum / White cholam / Jowar / Jonnalu – 1 cup

Raw rice/ Pacharisi – 1 cup

Urad dal – 1/2 cup

Fenugreek seeds – 2 teaspoons (see notes)

Salt – to taste

Water – as required

Method:

1) Wash and Soak sorghum, raw rice, urad dal and fenugreek seeds separately for minimum 2 hours.

2) After 2 hours, drain the water from sorghum completely. Sorghum should look moist but not wet. Put it in a mixer and make a powder of it. Keep aside.

3) Drain the water from urad dal and grind it to a smooth batter adding enough water at frequent intervals. Once done, collect it to a big container.

4) Next, drain
the water from raw rice and add it the grinder along with fenugreek seeds. Add sufficient Water
and grind it. While grinding it, add the powdered sorghum and continue
grinding it till you get a slightly smooth batter.

5) Once done, collect the batter and mix it with urad dal batter. Add salt and mix well.

6) Allow this batter to sit for 5-8 hours to ferment.

7) After the batter fermented well, beat slightly using a ladle. Add water if required to make pouring batter consistency.

8)
Heat does pan or tawa. When it is hot and not smoking, add a ladle full
of batter to it. Using the same ladle spread the batter in a circular
motion towards outside.

9) Allow dosa to cook on one side and flip it to cook other side.

10) Serve with any of your favorite chutney. We enjoyed it with onion chutney, sambar and idly Kara podi.

Notes:

1) You can soak both sorghum and raw rice together and add it directly to a
wet grinder. But my mom says grinding in this way takes long time and hence
followed the procedure as said above in this post.

2) Soak
fenugreek seeds alone for more than 4 hours for easy grinding. I usually
soak it first and after 2 hours I soak rice, cholam and urad dal.

3) Change the urad dal quantity based on the quality. you may require more or less depending upon how good it gives batter while grinding.

4) Most of the time sorghum batter quickly ferments. So, check after 5 hours and then keep for fermenting only if required after that.