Aambrosia

First the West, Then the East

I'm signing off for the next month -- on vacation in Colorado and Oregon -- before arriving in Delhi on September 3rd. Stay tuned. Eat spicy food. Delhi awaits:

South Indian Dosas, Shrimp, & Chutney

Working on South Indian cuisine, today we made a three-part lunch: dosas (slightly sour flat bread served plain or with filling, called a masala dosa), a shrimp curry, and a coconut-green chile chutney. To make the dosas, we ground urad dal, a mild light-colored lentil, into flour, mixed it with some rice flour (ratio 3:1), and let it soak in water overnight before making the dough the next day. Dosa dough rises to twice the initial size before it's ready to be rolled out. Spicy, turmeric-colored potatoes made up the filling of the masala dosas.

South Indian dishes are seasoned with simple, fresh ingredients: curry leaves, dried red chiles, green chiles, and fresh garlic, ginger, and cilantro. Unlike the north, no dried coriander or cumin powder and few spice seeds (mustard seeds are an exception). You can see the curry leaves, flecks of cilantro, and red chiles in the shrimp curry.

Grated coconut made up the base of the spicy chutney. (In Mangalore and Goa more coconut milk is used as the base of curries and chutneys; father south, it's grated coconut.)