Idli dosa when you do not have a grinder

Don't have a grinder and hate the decibels of a typical mixer-grinder-food-processor? Here's an easy recipe to make idli or dosa batter without a grinder.

Ingredients:
1. Udad dal 1 cup
2. Rice flour 1 cup
3. Methi seeds 1 tspn or methi powder 1/2 tspn
4. Water as required
5. Salt 1/2 tspn
6. Poha 1 handful (optional)

Method:

On a weekend evening, soak the udad dal (and methi seeds) in water (let the water level sit an inch above the dal). The next morning, get up and have a cup of warm lemongrass tea. Then, eat cereal with a banana. Now that you are energised, take the soaked dal and grind it in your mixer quickly before you go deaf with the sound. Next add the rice flour and salt to the ground dal and stir to mix well. Leave it out in a warm place and go out and play badminton or tennis or just do something outdoors. The batter will rise to double its volume by tea-time. Wash the poha and let it sit for 5 minutes after draining off excess water. Grind the poha and mix it with the batter. Mix more water to make the batter thinner (for dosa).

For dosa:
Heat an iron tava and spread some oil on it. Plop some batter on it and spread with a steel bowl or a dosa spoon. Let it cook and flip it when done. Enjoy with chutney and batatyachi bhaji.

For idli:
Spoon the batter into the idli mouls and steam for 10 minutes. Enjoy idlis with chutney and sambar.

Sprouts Pola or spicy sprouts crepe

Well, I am not sure if this is a CKP or even a Maharashtrian recipe but it is so nutritious and delicious that I had to put it here. You can even make it with overnight soaked pulses without sprouting them, think of it like a moist थालीपीठ.

Ingredients:
1. Sprouts of as many kinds as you can get except vaal, I haven't experimented with vaal yet. (Moog..green gram, Urid..black gram, Matki..moth, Chavli..cow peas, Sukhe vatane..dried peas, Methi..fenugreek seeds, Horse gram(kulith), black masoor etc). Just moog alone also taste great. Any combination of sprouts in any proportion is fine.
2. Oil/Ghee to grease the tava
3. Rice flour
4. Salt to taste
5. Ginger
6. Garlic cloves, peeled
7. Green chillies (Omit these if you do not want it spicy)
8. Coriander leaves
9. Water

Procedure:
1. To sprout the beans/grams, wash them and soak them in lukewarm water for about 8 hours. I soak them in the morning and drain them in the evening. Drain completely.
2. Place the soaked and drained grams/beans/peas in a bowl and cover it. Place the bowl in a warm and moist place for a day or two, depending on the ambient tempearture and the kind of sprouting you want. Note, the methi seeds need to be tied in a muslin cloth for sprouting, or else they take a long time to sprout.
3. After the beans have sprouted, grind the sprouts along with the chillies, coriander leaves, ginger and garlic in a mixie to obtain a grainy paste. Add some water to aid the grinding.
4. Add the salt and a tablespoon of rice flour to this mixture. Add water if required to make the mixture of pourable consistency.
5. Heat a griddle and grease it.
6. Pour a ladleful of the batter onto the griddle and spread it quickly.
7. Cover and cook for 2 minutes.
8. Flip and cook the other side for 1 minute.
9. Serve hot with curd or tomato ketchup. Yummy! and filling and very nutritious.

Tomato amlate(omlette)

Whoever said you can't make an omlette without breaking any eggs! It's called "cheela" in hindi. My aayee pronounces it "chilla" :) We have always known it as "tomato amlate". It's basically a kind of a spicy pancake made with chick-pea flour. It's ideal for those 5 pm hunger pangs when you also want something to tickle your tastebuds and also support you through the evening until dinner. You could even sandwich it between two slices of healthy brown bread and eat it with ketchup. My six year old loves it (his is made without the green chillies).
Ingredients: (makes 5-6 omlettes)
1. Besan (chick pea flour) 6 tbsn heaped
2. Onion, 1 medium, finely chopped
3. Tomato, 1 small, finely chopped
4. Green chillies 1-2, finely chopped
5. Coriander leaves finely chopped
6. Salt 2 tsn
7. Water 1 cup (approx)
8. Oil/ghee 5 tspn for the skillet(tava)

Procedure:
Mix ingredients 1 to 7 in a bowl. Note: add the water slowly until a thick batter is formed (something of the consistency of cake-batter, a little thinner).  Heat the tava (heavy iron griddle). Check if the tava is hot by sprinkling a few drops of water on it. The water droplets should bounce off the tava, not just sizzle into steam. Warning: If the tava is not hot enough, the omlette will stick to it and scraping it off and cleaning the tava wastes a lot of time!
Do not use non-stick, the teflon's not good for you. Spread a tspn of ghee/oil on the skillet. Use a ladle/big-spoon to scoop up the mixed batter and spread it as quickly as you can on the hot griddle. You may cover it with a lid till one side is cooked(about 2 minutes). Scrape it off the tava with a spatula(this requires some skill), flip it and do the other side for half a minute. Repeat until all the batter's used up. You could even refrigerate the batter for tomorrow, only bring it to room-temperature before making the omlettes. Serve straight from the skillet onto the plate with a bowl of curd (plain yoghurt) as dip. It's yumm and 2 of them quite fill me up!