What is rava dosa? How is it different from a dosa?
Rava dosa is a type of south Indian crepe that’s eaten for breakfast, tiffin (snack) or a main meal. Its USP is that it is crispy and lacy, unlike a traditional dosa, which is soft and spongy. Dosa batter is made with lentils and rice that need to be soaked, blended and then fermented for several hours before you make dosa. Rava dosa batter comes together much quicker: within minutes, in fact. All you have to do is mix rava or sooji (coarsely ground wheat), maida (all-purpose flour) and rice flour in a bowl and add a few seasonings to it. Mix in water and voila! Within minutes you’re ready to make dosas! No blending or fermentation needed. Excellent so far, but here’s the catch: a rava dosa is not the easiest type of dosa to make. One reason for this is that the batter is ridiculously watery and it needs to be that way to create those large holes in the crepe that become all golden and crunchy. Learning to create a rava dosa batter of the perfect consistency can be difficult: too much water and the dosa won’t set up; too little water and it won’t be lacy. The other reason is that unlike a traditional dosa batter, which you can learn to spread on a griddle fairly easily, a rava dosa batter needs to be poured on so it splashes on the hot griddle and creates those large holes and lacy fringe. Learning to do this right with a runny batter can be challenging. In short, the art of mastering the perfect rava dosa comes with a learning curve. Mine lasted many, many attempts before I could make one I could be proud of. But take heart, because even those misses were delicious. And because I learned from my mistakes, I’ve made this so much easier for you: if you follow my recipe and directions assiduously, you will very likely master rava dosa much faster than I did - perhaps even at your first attempt!
How to make rava dosa
More delicious dosa recipes
Recipe card
Rava (also called sooji or semolina). This is ground wheat, but it’s not a flour. You can find rava/sooji at any Indian store or online and it is sold both in a coarse grind and a fine grind. For this recipe, and for recipes like vegan sooji halwa, rava idli and rava upma, you need fine-ground rava. All-purpose flour (maida). Flour provides the binding prowess that’s needed to keep the dosa together and to help it set up. Rice flour. The rice flour helps make the rava dosa crispy and also helps with structure. Onions. Finely chopped onions are divine in a rava dosa. When cooking Indian food, red onions or shallots are preferred, but if yellow or white onions are what you have they will do. A rava dosa made with onions is called an onion rava dosa. You can skip the onions for a plain rava dosa. Ginger. Grated ginger adds flavor and nutrition. Cumin seeds. Cumin seeds also add lots of delicious flavor. Curry leaves. You can substitute cilantro for the curry leaves. Green chili peppers. Use jalapeno or serrano chillies or any green chilli peppers you can get your hands on. Deseed the chilies for less heat. If very sensitive to heat, use fresh-ground black pepper instead. Potato masala. This is the stuffing that goes inside the rava dosa. You can also serve the rava dosa plain with some chutney.
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