Pesarattu is described as Indian crunchy savory crêpe pancake made of Mung (moong) lentils. Pesarattu is popular in the states Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Rajasthan in India. Pesarattu name came from the Telugu language. Pesara is mung dal, attu is dosa, together is mung dal dosa. It is made with green mung dal batter. Pesarattu is topped with tiny onions and cilantro. It served as breakfast, with a side of ginger chutney. Pesarattu is made of Mung dal with skin, with added spices. Pesarattu is a breakfast which is high in protein, fiber, light in carbohydrates and sugars, which are the characteristics of a healthy breakfast. Bonus points are that Pesarattu is Vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free. A wonder Indian vegetarian recipe.
If you are making dosa for the first time, be ready to fail with the first few dosas. Not only you will struggle with spreading the batter to make thin dosa, you will also struggle to remove without damaging. Correct temperature for the griddle is important. Griddle should not be too hot and not too cold. Trust me, before you realize you’ll turn out to be an expert in dosas.
Another luxury variation of Pesarattu is MLA Pesarattu. MLA is Member of Legislative Assembly. You must be wondering, how the heck in the world Pesaratuu is named after MLA? It is a long story. Long back when MLA’s visited restaurants, Pesarattu was secretly filled with upma, so that no one figures out that MLA’s are treated specially.
For those who don’t know what Dosa is, it can be described as Indian crunchy sourdough crêpe pancake. Traditional urad dal Dosa is made of a high amount of rice. It has high carbohydrates, no sugar, moderate protein and no fiber. Most of the western breakfasts are not in the healthy category. Usual western breakfasts are made of highly processed all-purpose flour, sugars and topped with whipping cream. Pesarattu is a healthy, delicious breakfast. Whether you are an Indian, but never made Pesarattu or Indian dishes, but want to try Indian or you want to start making deliciously healthy vegan breakfast, Pesarattu is waiting for you. A well made Dosa is wonderfully delicious, and a healthy breakfast for busy mornings. Once you make the batter, it stays fresh up to a week. You can use the batter for a week as breakfast, snack or dinner. Choosing savory breakfast over sweet has many benefits. It cuts down a lot of sugars to your daily intake. Adding peppers in breakfast gives you essential minerals which keep you active all day.
Once dosa batter is prepared, it can be refrigerated up to a week. With a little preparation ahead, Dosa is easy and healthy breakfast for busy mornings. A number of instant dosa packages are available in stores. Be aware that these products and restaurant dosas contain higher amounts of rice and non-nutritious dehydrated ingredients. Since packaged dosa mix is dehydrated, they lack key nutrients. Packaged dosa mix is simply a box of dehydrated carbohydrates.
Though home-made dosa process a bit time-consuming and daunting, once you start making your own dosa’s with your own healthy ingredients, you ll go crazy for dosas. In winters when regular urad dal dosa batter doesn’t ferment, go for Pesarattu. I usually make the dosa batter enough for 4-5 days. I usually grind on Friday and use till Tuesday or Wednesday. This gives me lot of relaxing time over the weekend. No panic Monday mornings. Usually, I have a routine – Friday evening, after work, I soak. Grind in 3 hours. Saturday morning make chutney. Make fresh dosas for 4-5 days and enjoy. Not only for breakfast, it is great for packing kids and adults lunch. If you don’t have time to prepare lunch for kids in the morning, make dosas and pack with peanut chutney.
No need to gave up dosas because they are high in carbohydrates, calories or if you want to be on the low carb diet. Adding fiber, protein, and calcium to breakfast has lots of benefits. When you soak, more whole-grain lentils and less of rice is the suggested way of preparing to make it low in carbs. Since mung dal (green gram lentils) is high in protein and calcium, you are guaranteed to get needed nutrients for the day. Pesarattu doesn’t need to be ground in a wet grinder. You can grind in regular grinder.
When you entertain guests with dosa, impress them with a delicious presentation. Cook on a huge griddle, curl it and fill it with upma. If the process of grinding scares you, and you are leaning towards buying store-bought packages, I do not recommend using packages. They are simply dehydrated, a non-fermented version with rice flour and urad dal flour mix. Though making dosa with the package is much easy, the end product has no nutrition and has more carbohydrates, preservatives, and baking soda.
- 2 cups mung dal with skin
- ½ cup parboiled rice
- 1" fresh ginger stick
- 2-5 small green Thai chilies. You can use any other chilies.
- Healthy salt
- Healthy oils as olive or coconut oil or ghee. (You can safely substitute with other oils)
- Soak mung dal and rice for at least 3 hours.
- Drain water, grind along with ginger and chilies. Add water if needed.
- Grind to smooth paste. Batter should not be watery or too thick. It should be spreadable on the griddle.
- Lastly, add salt and pulse to mix well.
- Heat griddle to medium-high.
- Depending on the type of griddle whether it is a non-stick or not, you may need to spread oil before. For regular griddle other than non-stick, rubbing a cut onion helps.
- Pour 1 ladle full of batter. Spread carefully to a thin crepe with the same ladle.
- Top with small onions and cilantro. Pour a few drops of oil or ghee.
- Carefully remove. I make thin dosa's. So I don't have to turn around and fry. But if yours is thick, turn around and turn. Add few drops of oil.
- Remove, serve with ginger chutney.
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