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Dosa... beyond tradition
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The ongoing Dosa Festival at New Delhi's Radisson Hotel gives you a choice of 28 varieties of dosa. Though vastly different from the usual Deccan flavours, the variety that spices up the dosa's life is both amazing and amusing to SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY ... .
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THE CHOICE list on offer at the ongoing Dosa Festival in Delhi's Radisson Hotel would give a jolt even to a non-vegetarian South Indian, who would not normally expect to find a traditional dosa wrapped around shrimp paste, mozzarella sauce, minced lamb and mixed meat. But chef V. Jagannath - a Tamilian - at the hotel's `NYC Fun Café' would request you to try his 28 improvised versions of dosa. He also gives you a choice of dosa base - from the traditional rice and urad dal paste or semolina to that of tomato, sabudana and palak, or maybe a combination of all with one type of batter bordering the other to form a colourful circular shape.
Trained under Chef Bhaskaran of Radisson, Chennai, Chef Jagannath, along with Chef G.D. Bakshi, had reaped diners' compliments for their dosa variety in a food festival in Greece recently. "As the response in Greece was so overwhelming, we thought of trying out the recipes here too," says Chef Jagannath.
There are 14 non-vegetarian stuffings, including that of chicken keema masala, shrimp masala, spicy lamb, chicken tikka masala and mixed meat. And the vegetarian ones include paneer butter masala, mozzarella and dhania mix, tomato kut ka masala, sookha dal masala, makai navratan, cauliflower masala and alu podimas, etc. The dosas come with accompaniments of peanut chutney, coconut chutney, tomato chutney and appalam besides two types of rasams and sambar.
Chef Jagannath says he leaves the rasam and sambhar less tangy than the traditional dish-outs, keeping in mind the taste of his guests, who include foreigners. "We anyway have South Indian food one day of the week at the café. The guests enjoy the dishes but with less tamarind and chilli," he says.
Served as soup, the rasams come with grated coconut, leaving a good taste in your mouth, though not that of typical hot rasam. The dosas, filled with keema, palak and corn and cauliflower make you feel as if you are having a slightly different kind of `roti-sabji' as the combinations are devoid of any typical South Indian flavour. The selections are no doubt mouth-watering but one can enjoy them most if willing to mentally disconnect the platter from the typical Deccan flavours of tamarind, curry leaves, rai, hing and coconut oil.
The fortnight-long festival, to be on till July 31, is also "value for money" as a customer can have any number of dosas for Rs. 350. "The dosa variety can be clubbed with the regular buffet lunch and dinner at the NYC Café for Rs. 750," adds Anikesh Patel of the hotel's marketing division.
But what the festival lacks is a sweet dish to add a mellow touch to all the spicy variety. If dosa can undergo a bit of change in its colour and content, the chef could have tried his hand at some South Indian desserts too!
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
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Thiruvananthapuram
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