Khaman Dhokla

Guilty. I am definitely guilty of scope creep. Sometimes it gets the best of me. The worst scope creep usually happens when I cook Indian food. As it happened, another scope creep on Indian dinner prep day when I came across khaman dhokla. I found it in an Indian cookbook a friend of mine gave me and I am in LOVE! How did I not know about this? It’s delicious. I’ve never been to the state of Gujarat so that could be the reason but still. And my Gujarati friends; you have been holding out. Apparently, this lovely dish is now popular throughout India so on my next trip, I will definitely investigate and taste test as much as possible.

So, what is khaman dhokla? It is light, savory, and spongy - eaten as a snack or for breakfast or as a side dish. It can be eaten warm, cold or at room temperature. Although outside of Gujart, all types are called dhokla interchangeably. (Including in the/my cookbook) But there are many types of ‘dhokla’, and they are specific to the ingredients in it. The one I’m introducing here is khaman dhokla, also called khaman for short. Khaman means chickpea flour in Gujarati and this one is made with a fermented batter of chickpea flour. A plain old dhokla would be made with a batter combination of chickpea flour and rice flour. And if only made from rice flour, it is called khatta dhokla. Or so I’m told. For those folks that are not eating gluten most dhoklas are a great option for a non-gluten snack, except for the one made with selmolina. It’s protein rich and very filling and did I mention delicious?

“Starts working in 6 seconds”!

You can see the bubbly reaction between Eno and lemon

The old school way of making this is to prepare the batter 8 ~ 12 hours in advance because the batter needs to ferment, but now, you can make it in 20 minutes. Magic!  Like many traditional recipes, there are various methods and proportions. The version I’m introducing here is khaman dhokla, as you now know, made with chickpea flour only. And the magic ingredient that speeds up the fermentation process is fruit salt aka Eno. And what is Eno? It is an antacid used to relieve gastric acidity and or heartburn. Don’t worry the ingredients are a combination of baking soda (60%) and citric acid (40%) although there were other combinations in the past. Just remember to get the unflavored kind. You don’t want to be using cola flavored Eno. The ingredients are mixed and then steamed, although some people microwave it - I’m not a big fan of microwaves, or some use the pressure cooker - which I don’t use because I had a bad experience using a pressure cooker working on a school science project. So, we’re going with the traditional way which is to steam ‘em. And remember, sometimes scope creep does pay off.

Dhokla

Ingredients Serves 4~ 6

1 cup chickpea flour

½ cup yoghurt

7 ½ TBS water

1 TBS oil plus more to grease the pan

1 tsp Eno

2 TBS lemon juice

1 inch ginger, peeled and grated

1 tsp salt

½ green chili (like serrano)

Tarka (garnish for tempering)

1 tsp black mustard seeds

1 tsp sesame seeds

10 curry leaves

A handful of coriander leaves

½ - 1 TBS of fresh coconut or desiccated coconut

Method

1. Set up your steamer. If you don’t have a steamer, use a couple of ramekins in a pot to support the pan. Make sure the water won’t touch the pan when you put it in the steamer. Grease the pan. You can use a 9 inch cake pan or a 8 X 8 pan. In a large bowl mix the chickpea flour with the water, adding the water gradually and mix it well to avoid lumps. Add yoghurt, lemon, juice, salt, green chili, ginger and Eno and mix well.

2. Boil the water in the steamer and pour the batter into a greased pan. Lower the heat to medium and put the pan in the steamer carefully . Cover the pot with a tight fitting lid and steam for about 20 minutes. It’s done when a knife inserted into the dhokla comes out clean.

3. Once done, remove the pan and leave it to cool. Once cool, remove the dhokla from the pan.

4. To make the tarka, heat the oil in a pan and when hot add the mustard seeds, sesame seeds, and curry leaves and fry them until the mustard seeds pop and the curry leaves curl and crackle. Take it off the heat and pour over the dhokla and sprinkle with coconut and coriander.

   
   Tips:

   Cook the dhokla immediately, if you leave out the batter the dhokla won’t be spongy. Cook on medium or a little lower.

   Eno can be found at pharmacies and at Indian grocery stores. In a pinch, you can use lemon juice and baking soda.

   Adapted from Meera Sodha’s “Fresh India”