The September Daring cooks challenge, also my first Daring Cooks challenge, was a Vegan recipe that was pretty easy, tasty and made enough for dinner, lunch the next day and heaps of leftover filling and sauce. It was hosted by Debyi from the Healthy Vegan kitchen and I was pretty excited to learn how to make something new. Even though I have never made dosa's before I have eaten them heaps being introduced to them by parents when we were kids.

For those of you who don't know anything about the Daring Cooks Challenge, each month a different host chooses something that all members have to cook and then blog about on the same day, the reveal date. I think it's a great way for me to try new things and learn new recipes and also share this crazy obsession I have with cooking with other like-minded people. This is the first time I've made anything Vegan so that's a new type of cuisine I've learnt which is exciting.

So anyway back to the Dosa's. They took me about 1.5 hours all up to make from start to finish which was quicker than I thought. I had a few issues with the Dosa's sticking to my big frypan and the garbanzo filling was in the other large frypan so I had to make baby dosa's in a smaller frypan. Not very traditional but still still very tasty. The coconut sauce was a little too watery so next time I think I'll use 2 instead of 3 cups of vegetable stock. The processed chickpeas made the filling look like it had mince. It even tricked my meat loving fiance. I started with the coconut curry sauce since it had to simmer for 1/2 and hour, then I made the filling followed by the dosa's so they were hot and ready to be served straight away.

Indian Dosas

This recipe comes in 3 parts, the dosas, the filling and the sauce. It does take awhile to make, but the filling and sauce can be made ahead and frozen if need be. You can serve them as a main course with rice and veggies, or as an appetizer.

Serves 4

Dosa Pancakes

• 1 cup (120gm/8oz) spelt flour (or all-purpose, gluten free flour)
• ½ tsp (2½ gm) salt
• ½ tsp (2½ gm) baking powder
• ½ tsp (2½ gm) curry powder
• ½ cup (125ml/4oz) almond milk (or soy, or rice, etc.)
• ¾ cup (175ml/6oz) water cooking spray, if needed

1. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, slowly adding the almond milk and water, whisking until smooth.
2. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Spray your pan with a thin layer of cooking spray, if needed.
3. Ladle 2 tablespoons of batter into the center of your pan in a circular motion until it is a thin, round pancake. When bubbles appear on the surface and it no longer looks wet, flip it over and cook for a few seconds. Remove from heat and repeat with remaining batter.

Curried Garbanzo Filling

This filling works great as a rice bowl topping or as a wrap too, so don't be afraid to make a full batch.

• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 onion, peeled and finely diced
• 1 carrot, peeled and finely diced
• 1 green pepper, finely diced (red, yellow or orange are fine too)
• 2 medium hot banana chilies, minced
• 2 TBSP (16gm) cumin, ground
• 1 TBSP (8gm) oregano
• 1 TBSP (8gm) sea salt (coarse)
• 1 TBSP (8gm) turmeric
• 4 cups (85 0gm/30oz) cooked or canned chick peas (about 2 cans)
• ½ cup (125gm/4oz) tomato paste

1. Heat a large saucepan over medium to low heat. Add the garlic, veggies, and spices, cooking until soft, stirring occasionally.
2. Mash the chickpeas by hand, or in a food processor. Add the chickpeas and tomato paste to the saucepan, stirring until heated through.

Coconut Curry Sauce

This makes a great sauce to just pour over rice as well. This does freeze well, but the texture will be a little different. The flavor is still the same though.

• 1 onion, peeled and chopped
• 2 cloves garlic
• ½ (2½ gm) tsp cumin, ground
• ¾ (3¾ gm) tsp sea salt (coarse)
• 3TBSP (30gm) curry powder
• 3 TBSP (30gm) spelt flour (or all-purpose GF flour)
• 3 cups (750ml/24oz) vegetable stock
• 2 cups (500ml/24oz) coconut milk
• 3 large tomatoes, diced

1. Heat a saucepan over medium heat, add the onion and garlic, cooking for 5 minutes, or until soft.
2. Add the spices, cooking for 1 minutes more. Add the flour and cook for 1 additional minute.
3. Gradually stir in the vegetable broth to prevent lumps. Once the flour has been incorporated, add the coconut milk and tomatoes, stirring occasionally.
4. Let it simmer for half an hour.

Dosa Toppings

• ¼ cup (125gm) grated coconut
• ¼ cucumber, sliced into ribbons

Happy eating! I think I will make this again but try different fillings. I am keen to try a paneer filling but I'm not sure if it will be as good as the paneer dosa's from Billu's. I loved the coconut sauce and it was great on rice for lunch at work.

 

Stay tuned for my first daring bakers challenge.....It is a secret until the reveal date so no clues sorry