LIVE TO COOK

Perugu is Telugu Term for Home made yogurt. Usually Recipes are named after the main ingredients, Like Tomato rice, Potato Fry, Oats cookies. It is very rare that other ingredients that help in completing the dish, get a place in the Recipe name. Perugu Dosa is one such recipe where the home made yogurt got the name. But why? Read ahead.

Each cuisine has its own concept for fermentation and leavening. That said, each cuisine has its own and unique recipe that involves fermenting and leavening. For Andhra Pradesh, it is Perugu Dosa. In general, Dosa is a recipe that is mostly leavened by Natural yeast. It is done either by Fermenting (capturing the natural yeast in the air to the ground batter) or using an ingredient that is already fermented.

In Perugu Dosa , we use already fermented yogurt to help fermenting the rice. Since the outcome of the dosa depends upon the yogurt, it got a place in the name. Now, Over to perugu dosa recipe…..

Rice – 1 cup
Home made yogurt – 2 cups
Chana dhal – 2 tablespoons
Salt – 1 teaspoon
curry leaves – 2 to 3
Green chillies – 2 to 3 (optional)
Asafetida – 1 pinch
oil – 1/8 cup

Method:

Soak the rice in yogurt for 8 hours. Soak chana dhal in water, seperately in a small bowl. (I soaked the chana dhal along with the rice)

Grind the rice, along with the yogurt, to a smooth paste. Mix other ingredients except oil , with the paste. Drain the chana dhal and add to the paste.

Heat the griddle and pour 1/2 cup of batter in the middle. spread the batter in circular motion with the back of a spoon or small bowl. Pour 1/2 teaspoon oil to the sides of the dosa. when the sides turn brown, flip the dosa and cook the other side.

The dosa will look like this:

This is my entry for lakshmi’s “Celebrating Regional cuisines of India” event, hosted by Latha. Please find the details about this event by clicking on the image below.