What’s cooking – Dosa

Seriously. Being raised in South India, dosas were almost always available for breakfast and sometimes also for dinner at home. The very thought that I used to shovel dosas down my throat just to be done with my breakfast horrifies me now when I crave to have the round, crispy, perfect dosa. There are more than 100 dosa recipes – no kidding. Sometimes I’d just sit at my desk and imagine the whole process of booking my tickets home and being greeted with all kinds of dosas. A recent Facebook video of a road-side stall in India selling some really extraordinary dosas and a picture of the 38.2 foot long dosa that made it into the Guinness Book of World Records burst the last vein of patience in me. I couldn’t take it anymore; I had to have a dosa! Sharing some interesting facts about Dosa and a simple recipe is just a small way of paying a tribute to one of the best dishes ever made in the history of mankind!

Dosa batter, which is used to make the dosas, keeps getting better and better after a few days of storage, either in or out of the refrigerator. On the first day, one has a ‘plain dosa’, neither thick nor thin. The second day is when the batter attains its majesty, allowing you to make ‘paper roast’ – dosas as thin as paper! On the third day, it’s easy to make ‘oothappam’, a fat cousin of dosa. Lastly, one can make ‘pitchu (torn) dosa’ where the leftover dosas are torn into bits! When you fill a dosa with your favourite vegetables it becomes ‘masala dosa’. The many faces of dosas make them all the more unique and special.

Wheat dosas/goduma dosai are healthy and very simple to make. They taste very different from other types of dosa and are usually less preferred to the usual dosa made of rice flour and black gram dhal. The advantage of wheat dosa is that you need not wait until the yeast is formed, unlike the usual dosa where the batter is kept aside for several hours before using it. You can also stuff wheat dosas with mashed potatoes to make it more delicious and healthier.

Ingredients

• 
  Wheat flour: 1 cup
• 
  Rice flour: 2 table spoons or less for the dosa to be crispy
• 
  Green chillies: 2 (not obligatory)
• 
  Salt to taste
• 
  Cumin seeds: 1 teaspoon and cooking oil

Step1: Mix the flours in a boiling pan with salt and slowly add water, 2 cups, stirring continuously in order to avoid lumps.

Step2: temper the cumin seeds in a teaspoon of oil and when they start popping, add finely chopped chillies. Set aside to cool. When slightly warm, mix it with the batter you made in step1

Step3: heat a pan, preferably a non stick pan to avoid the dosa from sticking and pour some batter. Swirl the pan until the batter spreads everywhere. Place the pan on a stove set to medium heat.

Step4: add a teaspoon or less amount of oil on the edges of the dosa which is being cooked.

Step5: allow the dosa to be cooked for a couple of minutes while turning over. The dosa is ready when browned on both sides.

Een woordvoerder van Inholland bevestigt het bericht in De Telegraaf dat Labruyère en Snippe bovendien een vertrekpremie krijgen van respectievelijk 175 duizend en 155 duizend euro. Hij spreekt van een ‘minnelijke vertrekregeling zonder tussenkomst van de rechter. Er is tot afgelopen vrijdag over onderhandeld. “Dit is eruit gekomen. Als de kantonrechtersformule was gehanteerd, zouden ze veel meer hebben gekregen.”

Diplomaroute
De twee bestuurders werden op non-actief gesteld na de affaire met de dubieuze diplomaroute voor ouderejaars studenten. Ook intern rommelde het binnen het bestuur en waren er geruchten over dubieus declaratiegedrag. Voorzitter Geert Dales moest al eerder vertrekken.

Cynische reacties
Onder het Telegraaf-bericht staan cynische reacties. “Hoezo moet er meer geld naar onderwijs?”, vraagt iemand, die concludeert dat er kennelijk nog wel genoeg geld is voor zulke vertrekregelingen. Iemand anders vraagt zich af waarom beide bestuurders nu al geld krijgen, terwijl het onderzoek van de Onderwijsinspectie naar mogelijke fraude bij Inholland nog loopt.

Als het vorige week ingediende wetsvoorstel van minister Donner wordt aangenomen mag de vertrekpremie voor onderwijsbestuurders ten hoogste 75 duizend euro bedragen.