Ingredients

1. Dosa batter (see my dosa batter for crispy dosa) - as required
2. Ghee – as required

Method

For plain ghee roast or crispy golden brown dosa

1. First we have to prepare the tava before pouring the batter, to get good dosa.
2. Preheat the dosa tava or griddle or non-stick dosa tava , when it is hot drizzle 1/2tsp oil, and wipe it with slice of onion or the tip of the onion , just clean the tava, do not burn your hand in it. Dosa will come in good golden brown colour and it will not stick to the tava.
3. Just before putting the batter on tava, sprinkle little water on tava , as soon as the sizzling sound comes, again clean the tava with onion. The water is sprinked to bring the temperature of tava little down, so that we can rotate the batter well.
4. Then put a spoonful of batter or ladleful batter in the middle of tava and spread it with the help of laddle as a medium circle size dosa with very thin base.
5. The tava should be hot, as when we put the batter and make dosa sizzling sound should come.
6. Swirl the spoon round, clockwise direction, rotate it round, but not slowly, little quick, otherwise it will start sticking to the tava.
7. After 30seconds, drizzle ghee around the dosa and let it cook for few min, till you can see on the dosa itself the golden brown colour.
8. Simmer the flame and scrap the top of the dosa the middle part where the dosa is little thick, with the frying dosa spoon or any flat spoon, can see in the picture. Scrap only in the middle where it is thick, do it very lightly, do not break the dosa. It will come out easily, as on top it is cooked but not crispy. Be careful, donot burn the dosa, so as soon as you see that top of the dosa is cooked, start scrapping, if the batter is raw then the dosa can get tored. After scrapping it quickly, drizzle ghee on top and around, can turn the dosa and cook it for less than 1min or without turning the dosa can serve it. This will make your dosa as cripy as you get it in the hotels.
9. If you donot want to scrap the dosa in the middle, then just cook on both sides and serve.
10. Sometimes while cooking the dosa, in the middle of cooking I sprinkle water (few drops)on top of the dosa, after drizzling some ghee, to make my dosa soft from inside but crispy and golden colour from outside.
11. Now after cooking the dosa , it is up to you , how you want to fold it or what shape you want to give.
12. As seen in the picture I have just folded the dosa.
13. Repeat the same above process, every time you cook the dosa.
14. Every time you put the dosa, clean the tava with the onion if you want and then put the batter, to avoid sticking and a good colour will come on dosa.
15. After 2 or 3 dosas , try to sprinkle some water and wipe it with the onion, so that dosa will come out easily in shape.
16. Serve it with any chutney, kurma (vegetable or chicken), sambar or potato poriyal (potato fry) or idli podi (it is a spicy powder, in which you can drizzle some oil or ghee or sesame oil (nella yennai), mix it and eat with dosa or idli) (you get it easily in the stores shakthi podi or acchi brand or any you like)
17. I have served it with tomato chutney and onion chutney.

For cone shape dosa

18. First follow the above procedure for the dosa and follow till the dosa is lightly golden brown scrapping of dosa is also done as given above.
19. As soon as you scrape the dosa on top , just make a cut from the middle of dosa to the corner end, and drizzle ghee on top and around and then try to turn it round in a conical shape. Without scrapping dosa also you can make a cone shape.
20. Make a cut when the dosa is not very crispy as it can break it into pieces. Cut when the dosa is soft but cooked.

Notes

1. Before making dosa , always prepare your dosa tava or griddle ready, by rubbing it with onion and then sprinkling some water and again rubbing it with onion. This will give you perfect dosa, crispy dosa, good uttapam and other dosas you make.
2. When are you making dosa, you can sprinkle water on tava in between after making 2 to 3 dosa , and rub it with onion, to make the dosa tava clean.
3. If dosa is sticking on the tava, just drizzle few drops of oil/ghee , rub it with onion and then batter on it.
4. The oil/ghee on the tava should be such that it is just greased not like we put for any frying items like egg, that’s why we rub it with onion after drizzling oil/ghee in the beginning only.
5. In villages or still in some houses I see, they tie a small cloth to the stick with which they drizzle the oil /ghee or rub the tava, so that not much oil/ghee is added and the stick will be always in the oil/ghee, using every time whenever dosa is made on tavas.
6. I never drizzle any oil/ghee, before putting the batter, just for preparing dosa tava I add oil/ghee and after making dosa I drizzle oil/ghee.
7. You can make dosa on the non-stick pan also but that golden brown good colour effect comes only, with the ordinary dosa tava.
8. For dosa, we should always keep the tava separate as we cannot cook chappathis or rotis on it, but on dosa tava you can cook egg fry, fish fry, but it is always better to keep the tava separate.
9. For the variation, try to sprinkle some idli podi or dry coconut chilli powder, or curry leaf powder on dosa , we call it as a podi (powder), we get it in Chennai and Andhra and other south places also. it will give you different tatse.