The Fastest Dhokla Ever

You are just up from a sunday afternoon nap sipping your tea and still a bit groggy when you get a call from friends saying that they are coming over in 20 mins. First of all you think "Oh let them come ,I am not going to make anything to eat, thay can have tea and some biscuits." But then slowly the foodie in you comes alive and starts nagging you to take the effort and make something. You reluctantly get up and go through your kitchen cupboard to see what you can make and stumble across a packet of Eno Fruit Salt. And you immediately know what you are going to make. Its the Fastest Dhokla Ever.

Here's how:

2 cups besan (chickpea flour) , 1 Glass water, 1 tblspn Sugar, 2/3 cloves garlic finely crushed, 4/5 Green Chillies finely chopped, 1 tspn lemon juice, 1 tspn Eno Fruit Salt (any flavour will do,I had the lemon flavour), 1/2 tspn Turmeric powder, salt to taste.

For the tempering:

2 tblspns oil, 2/3 tspns mustard seeds, 2 pinches asafoetida, 6/7 curry leaves

For the lemon -sugar syrup: 1/4 cup water, Juice of one lemon, 1 tblspn sugar. Just mix it all together.

Process:

Mix the Besan and Water to form a smooth batter.

Add the crushed garlic , chillies, turmeric, salt and sugar and give it a good stir. Taste the batter. It should be sweet and sour and hot all at once.

Grease a steel vessel that goes into your pressure cooker. Place this vessel in the cooker and place the cooker on the gas hob. After the water in the cooker begins to boil add the Eno to the dhokla batter, stir again quickly, you will immediately see the batter rising.

Now quickly pour this batter into the cooker vessel and put on the cooker lid. Steam the Dhokla for 8 to 10 mins without pressure.

After 10 mins open the cooker and let the Dhokla rest for a while. When it is warm to touch mark out the slices with a sharp and well oiled knife. Spoon the lemon-sugar syrup gradually over the marked slices. The syrup is absorbed by the dhokla making it extremely moist from the inside unlike shop-bought dhoklas which are terribly dry from within.

Prepare the tempering by adding the mustard, asafoetida and curry leaves to hot oil. Cool it and then spoon this over the dhokla. Garnish with fresh coriander and fresh grated coconut.

I served this with sweet and sour tamarind and jaggery chutney and lightly fried green chillies. For the chillies you will need 5 to 6 long green chillies. Slit them vertically without cutting them into 2. Stuff them with a mixture of salt and asafoetida. Lightly fry them on a tawa with a little oil. Cover them while frying or else everyone in the house will be coughing in minutes.

Your guests will love these home-made Dhoklas