Low GI & Omega 3 Rich Recipes

My First Daring Cooks Challenge! I am so impressed with my new griddle – it reminds me of my grandmother’s cast iron woodfire oven. I remember stoking the fire so we could have hot water to shower – and late nights sitting up listening to the fire crackling… thanks for the memories guys! The recipe and challenge was provided by Debyi who writes a blog Healthy Vegan Kitchen.

I love potato masala dosa – we have an Indian restaurant nearby that makes the most delicious ones – their griddle must be at least 50 cm big because they are huge! I decided to do a pumpkin masala filling; along with a thin sambal with cauliflower; as well as coconut chutney made with coconut, bengal gram dal and water; and to finish off a cucumber salad with minted natural yoghurt.

Click the “read more” to see a video of me cooking one on the griddle!

I used a combination of rice flour and black gram flour (or besan) made from channa dal (a very low GI type of lentil). I omitted the milk (used a little more water), as I had no almond milk, only cows milk, and wanted to remain true to the challenge. After reading some tips on cooking dosai I found on various South Indian cooking blogs I allowed the dosa mixture to rest for 2 hours prior to cooking. I didn’t notice it rising much, but perhaps this helped with the bubbles, as I did get quite a few bubbles forming while they cooked.

Dosai has been measured in two studies to have a GI of 55 or 70. This is when it is served with all the condiments. The potato would raise the GI, the lentil sambal reduce it. The lentil flour would lower the GI, the fermentation process would raise it. We don’t know the GI of this dish, but I believe it would be low to medium, given the short fermentation time (only two hours as opposed to overnight); the lentil flour – low GI bengal gram (bengal gram has a GI of 12-16 (the lowest of any grain); and replacing potato with pumpkin (lower glycaemic load – smaller carb portion). In addition, I added cauliflower to the sambal – as it is one of my favourite vegetables, with a GI of zero.

Between each pancake I moistened the griddle with a little water, both to clean it, and to cool down the hotplate – it did start to get rather hot, and I managed to set off our smoke alarm!

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

(Debyi’s version used almond milk and curry powder. I altered this slightly. Debyi’s recipe is available in full on the Daring Kitchen site.)

• 3/4 cup rice flour
• 1/4 cup besan (wholegrain bengal gram) flour
• 1 and 1/4 cups water
• 1/2 teaspoon ground fennel seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Method:

• Combine the dry ingredients
• Gradually, a small amount at a time, blend in the liquid.
• When combined and smooth, let it sit for 2 hours covered on the benchtop
• Linked here is a video demonstrating the cooking process (to follow – currently downloading to u-tube)
• The most important point is a very hot and very flat griddle – preferably cast iron. This one cost me 30 dollars and will make a nice BBQ grill as the other side is ridged.
• You can fill with any curry you love best. Traditionally, these are served with condiments including coconut chutney, sambal (a sour lentil dal made from red lentil and tamarind), and a little chilli. I will post each of these separately over the next few days. We followed this with a simple cucumber and mint salad, and we used the y0ghurt to cool down the pumpkin, into which I put a little too much chilli!