Thursday, October 22, 2009

Dosadillas: This is not a recipe.

Well, I guess maybe it is. There’s not much to it. It’s more like the lazy vegan’s version of a very good recipe published in VegNews. The Internet tells me that Robin Robertson’s Quick-Fix Vegetarian also has an excellent recipe.

Dosas, you have my heart.

What’s a dosa, you ask? A dosa is basically the Indian version of a taco or crêpe. It’s samosa filling folded inside flatbread, and if you don’t know what a samosa is, then God help you. It is heavenly. What I make are more accurately called “dosadillas” (not my word) since I just use tortillas instead of making my own fancy flatbread. What can I say? When I’m hungry, all pretense goes down the drain.

Here’s what I did last night. You’re supposed to use baked potatoes, but we didn’t have any. I parboiled 4 red potatoes instead. This was a decent substitute, but red potatoes don’t mash nearly as well, so the filling was lumpy. No matter. I sautéed some garlic (Red used the last onion, but that’s okay because he used it to make fried potatoes), then added a 10-oz. bag of frozen peas and carrots. I stirred in the potatoes, which still refused to be mashed, and added a teaspoon each of turmeric and curry. And a few shakes of salt, too. (Here I feel the need to clarify that I am normally much more elaborate with my spices, but as I said, we were hungry and short on time.) When everything is hot, move it to the other side of the stove and preheat a little (just a little) oil in a skillet.

This is the fun part. Once your filling has cooled a little, scoop some (1/4 cup? 1/3? I don’t know, people) into a tortilla and fold it over. Try not to use so much that your filling squeezes out of your dosadilla. Plus, you want to have extra room for chutney.

Place 2 dosadillas in the skillet over medium heat. Watch them so they don’t burn! After a few minutes, check the bottoms. If they’re brown to your liking, flip them over carefully. When they’re done, remove them from the heat (duh).

Red likes to spread chutney along one flat side of the dosadilla, then eat it with a knife and fork. I prefer to eat mine with my hands, dipping it into a small bowl of chutney as I go. I love mango-ginger chutney, but we recently picked up apple-cranberry as well. Red suggested that our next batch of dosas be more savory, with less Indian spice and more sage, which would go well with the apple-cranberry chutney. I’ll keep you posted!

Tonight I’m feeling like crêpes. This will be my second crêpe attempt, so I’m less nervous than I was before. Breakfast for dinner!

1 comment:

  1. I love this idea! Combines two of my favorite things ever - dosas and quesadillas. YUM, you are a brilliant vegan, hooray!

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