Horror of making Dhoklas & the magic ingredient
Dhokla - I am not sure if I should describe it as a steamed dumpling or steamed bread. Dhokla is airy, light, flavorful steamed fermented chickpea flour batter and is usually had for breakfast or as snack any time of the day. I dont know when and how mummy first started to make it at home. Dhokla, while very common now all over India, was not as common in north when we were growing up.
There is a story associated with how I learned to make Dhokla when I was doing my engineering at Roorkee (long time ago!). Mummy and papa had come to Roorkee before the summer vacation and we stayed back in Roorkee colony for a week or so before returning home. Mausi and mausaji from Rishikesh, who are both expert cooks were there too. My local guardian at the time, mamji, had signed up our whole family for making breakfast in the morning. It was fun to be part of a team with these experts cooks - we dazzled folks with unexpected variety every day and got lot of praise for anything, everything that was prepared. I remember vividly the day we decided to make dhokla for next morning's breakfast. We started 12-14 hours prior preparing yogurt and chickpea batter and leaving it overnight for it to ferment. We were up early (4am?) and it was time to add minced ginger, chillies and cilantro and then pour and steam the batter. We added baking soda to this big pot of batter (to make sure it rises) and started couple of batches for steaming. When the first batch came out, to our surprise and horror, steamed batter was more of a solid mass and not the airy fluff we wanted. Again, I dont remember the specifics but do remember that this expert team of cooks tried every trick in their pocket to get the dhokla to rise but we got batch after batch of disappointing results. The reputation was at stake and time was running out. Mummy, mausi and mausaji were very surprised because they had each made wonderful dhoklas before and they did not know what had gone wrong. In the end, we dropped the idea of making dhokla with rest of the batter. Instead some onions and potatoes were chopped and they were rolled into chickpea batter to make wonderful fried pakoras. The dhokla's that we did make (that solid mass) was cut into small pieces and was simmered in a spicy onions, chillies and tomatoes sauce. We were still making pakoras when folks started to roll in for breakfast. Pakoras and little dhoklas (we did not call them that) were a big hit and everybody was raving about how tasty the pakora batter was. By the end, we had our smiles back but only we knew that we meant to make dhoklas and after failing to make good dhoklas turned around to make wonderful pakoras.
As they say, all is well that ends well. This became a wonderful story to be told again and again with lot of drama and laughter. Maybe few months/years(?) passed and then mummy told me once that she had found this special magic ingredient that could be used to make fluffy, airy dhoklas with hundred percent chance of success every time and all the time and the best thing was that you could make dhoklas any time you wanted without having to wait for the fermentation process. The magic ingredient was really Eno, the fruit salt which needs to be added at the last minute. Eno introduces air bubbles in the batter and the steamed mixture is fluffy and airy. I have always used wonderful dhoklas using eno but most of the times, I am reminded of the Roorkee incident when I make them.
I have made this post very long so I am going to sign off now and post the recipe in another post here..
There is a story associated with how I learned to make Dhokla when I was doing my engineering at Roorkee (long time ago!). Mummy and papa had come to Roorkee before the summer vacation and we stayed back in Roorkee colony for a week or so before returning home. Mausi and mausaji from Rishikesh, who are both expert cooks were there too. My local guardian at the time, mamji, had signed up our whole family for making breakfast in the morning. It was fun to be part of a team with these experts cooks - we dazzled folks with unexpected variety every day and got lot of praise for anything, everything that was prepared. I remember vividly the day we decided to make dhokla for next morning's breakfast. We started 12-14 hours prior preparing yogurt and chickpea batter and leaving it overnight for it to ferment. We were up early (4am?) and it was time to add minced ginger, chillies and cilantro and then pour and steam the batter. We added baking soda to this big pot of batter (to make sure it rises) and started couple of batches for steaming. When the first batch came out, to our surprise and horror, steamed batter was more of a solid mass and not the airy fluff we wanted. Again, I dont remember the specifics but do remember that this expert team of cooks tried every trick in their pocket to get the dhokla to rise but we got batch after batch of disappointing results. The reputation was at stake and time was running out. Mummy, mausi and mausaji were very surprised because they had each made wonderful dhoklas before and they did not know what had gone wrong. In the end, we dropped the idea of making dhokla with rest of the batter. Instead some onions and potatoes were chopped and they were rolled into chickpea batter to make wonderful fried pakoras. The dhokla's that we did make (that solid mass) was cut into small pieces and was simmered in a spicy onions, chillies and tomatoes sauce. We were still making pakoras when folks started to roll in for breakfast. Pakoras and little dhoklas (we did not call them that) were a big hit and everybody was raving about how tasty the pakora batter was. By the end, we had our smiles back but only we knew that we meant to make dhoklas and after failing to make good dhoklas turned around to make wonderful pakoras.
As they say, all is well that ends well. This became a wonderful story to be told again and again with lot of drama and laughter. Maybe few months/years(?) passed and then mummy told me once that she had found this special magic ingredient that could be used to make fluffy, airy dhoklas with hundred percent chance of success every time and all the time and the best thing was that you could make dhoklas any time you wanted without having to wait for the fermentation process. The magic ingredient was really Eno, the fruit salt which needs to be added at the last minute. Eno introduces air bubbles in the batter and the steamed mixture is fluffy and airy. I have always used wonderful dhoklas using eno but most of the times, I am reminded of the Roorkee incident when I make them.
I have made this post very long so I am going to sign off now and post the recipe in another post here..
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