Dhokla
A steamed chickpea-flour sponge, sour with lemon and aerated in the last ten seconds, then flooded with a sweet mustard-seed tempering.
- Prep
- 20m
- Cook
- 20m
- Waiting
- 20m
- Total
- 1h
- Serves
- 6
- Effort
- Moderate
Method
Tap a step number to mark it done. Tap an ingredient once for got it, twice for need it.
| 1 1/2 cups | Whisk to a thick pouring batter and rest 20 minutes 5m Rest lets the gram flour hydrate, so the crumb is tender rather than chalky. | Fold in the fruit salt and pour straight into an oiled tin 1m Fold six times, no more, then move. Every second of stirring costs you height. | Steam 15 minutes, until a skewer comes out dry 15m Lid wrapped in a cloth so no condensation drips back and pockmarks the top. | Pour the tempering over the cut squares and leave 10 minutes to drink it up 10m Cut first, temper second. The liquid needs the cut edges to get inside. | |
| 2 tbsp | |||||
| 1 cup | |||||
| 1 tbsp | |||||
| 1/4 tsp | |||||
| 2 tsp | |||||
| 1 tsp | |||||
| 1 tbsp | |||||
| 2 tbsp | |||||
| 1 1/2 tsp | |||||
| 3 tbsp | Crackle the seeds in hot oil, then add water and sugar and boil 4m The sugar syrup is the point. Plain tempered oil slides off. | ||||
| 2 tsp | |||||
| 1 tbsp | |||||
| 3 | |||||
| 12 | |||||
| a pinch | |||||
| 1/2 cup | |||||
| 2 tbsp | |||||
| a handful | |||||
| 2 tbsp | |||||
-
Whisk to a thick pouring batter and rest 20 minutes
5m- gram flour 1 1/2 cups
- fine semolina 2 tbsp
- water 1 cup
- ginger and green chilli paste 1 tbsp
- ground turmeric 1/4 tsp
- caster sugar 2 tsp
- salt 1 tsp
- lemon juice 1 tbsp
- neutral oil 2 tbsp
Rest lets the gram flour hydrate, so the crumb is tender rather than chalky.
-
Fold in the fruit salt and pour straight into an oiled tin
1m- from 1 Whisk to a thick pouring batter and rest 20 minutes
- fruit salt 1 1/2 tsp
Fold six times, no more, then move. Every second of stirring costs you height.
-
Steam 15 minutes, until a skewer comes out dry
15m- from 2 Fold in the fruit salt and pour straight into an oiled tin
Lid wrapped in a cloth so no condensation drips back and pockmarks the top.
-
Crackle the seeds in hot oil, then add water and sugar and boil
4m- neutral oil 3 tbsp
- mustard seeds 2 tsp
- sesame seeds 1 tbsp
- green chillies 3
- curry leaves 12
- asafoetida (optional) a pinch
- water 1/2 cup
- caster sugar 2 tbsp
The sugar syrup is the point. Plain tempered oil slides off.
-
Pour the tempering over the cut squares and leave 10 minutes to drink it up
10m- from 3 Steam 15 minutes, until a skewer comes out dry
- from 4 Crackle the seeds in hot oil, then add water and sugar and boil
- coriander leaves a handful
- fresh coconut (optional) 2 tbsp
Cut first, temper second. The liquid needs the cut edges to get inside.
Why the fruit salt goes in last
Fruit salt is sodium bicarbonate packed with its own acid. Dry, nothing happens; wet, the two react and release carbon dioxide almost immediately. The batter has perhaps ninety seconds of useful lift before the bubbles find each other, merge and escape. Getting it into a hot steamer inside that window is the whole skill of dhokla. Steam then sets the protein around the foam at 100°C, locking the holes in place, which is why the surface stays pale and damp rather than crusting as it would in an oven.
Notes
- Have the steamer at a rolling boil and the tin oiled before you open the fruit salt. There is no time to do it after.
- Batter should ribbon off the whisk. Too thick and the gas cannot expand; too thin and the bubbles rise straight out.
- A dense dhokla is still good the next day, fried in a little oil with mustard seeds.