South Indian Adai Recipe | How to Prepare Adai Dosa

Adai is made from rice-lentil batter. We use Bengal gram (Channa dahl), yellow split peas (Tuvar dahl) and rice in this preparation. I have replaced white rice with brown rice on some days. Even wild rice or Jasmine rice can also be used. Adai dosa is typically served with aviyal (assorted vegetables cooked with coconut and other spices) or butter, jaggery or a chutney or simple spice podi called idli podi.
If you want to host a South Indian styled Christmas Party, you can include the following dishes and spruce up the dining table with fun serving dishes:
- Orange Punch
- Plums rasam shots
- Sweet Plantain Appetizer
- Adai disks served with tomato chutney and cold butter curls
- Semolina upma
- Mango Crème Brulee
South Indian Adai Dosa Served With Tomato Chutney


Ingredients
- 1 cup brown rice
- ½ cup yellow split peas/toor dhal
- ½ cup bengal gram/channa dhal
- 2 garlic cloves
- ¼ inch ginger skin peeled
- 2 dry red chillies
- salt
For The Tempering
- ½ tsp Olive Oil
- ¼ cup Onions Finely Chopped
- 2 tsp asafoetida
- 10-12 curry leaves finely chopped
- 10 black pepper balls whole/crushed
- water to soak and grind
- ¼ cup oil
Instructions
- Soak the brown rice and lentils in a separate bowl with excess water for 4-5 hours. Also soak the dry red chillies in any one of the bowl. Set them aside. Once done, drain the water completely and grind them with ginger and garlic to a batter. Use minimum water. The batter will be thicker than pancake or dosa batter.
- Heat oil in a small pan and add asafoetida, curry leaves, onions , black pepper balls and salt. Add them to the batter and mix well.
- Heat the pan or tawa over medium heat for about 2-3 minutes. Spray with cooking spray. Pour a ladle full of the thick batter in the center of the pan and spread in circular fashion with the back of the spoon to form a circle. Drizzle little oil around the edges and let it cook for 8 minutes and flip it over for another few minutes, about 5 minutes. They should be brown and crispy. Always cook them in medium flame to avoid burning.
Notes

Ingredients
- 2 tdp olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 2 green chillies chopped
- 2 tbsp roasted almonds
- 2 plump red tomatoes chopped
- salt
Instructions
- Heat oil in a saucepan. Once hot, add garlic and green chilies. Sauté for a minute. Add tomatoes and let it cook covered for 8-10 minutes on low flame. Switch off the heat. Let it cool. Grind to a smooth paste with almonds. Add salt to taste.
Notes
- Keep a bowl of jaggery dust (grated jaggery), leave the butter in the fridge until ready to plate. I used a cheese grater to get the curls.
- In a large communal plate, neatly arrange the cooked adai (cooled room temperature as butter shouldn’t melt when places on top). Smear little tomato chutney on top, single cilantro leaf , sprinkle jaggery and finally add butter curls.