Azhagar Kovil Dosai is a very flavorful, savory dosa made from raw rice, black urad dal, and spices. This dosai is very popular as an offering made to the presiding deity of the Azhagar Koil, hence the name.
Azhagar Koil is a temple dedicated to Lord Vishnu located 21 km from Madurai, in the South Indian state of Tamilnadu. This temple is one of the 108 divyadesams or sacred shrines dedicated to Lord Vishnu.
Tradition has it that every year during the Chithirai festival, in April/May, the celestial marriage of Goddess Meenakshi to Lord Sundareswarar is celebrated.
Lord Vishnu /Azhagar travels to Madurai to attend the wedding of his sister Goddess Meenakshi. It is a 10-day long festival and lakhs of devotees visit Madurai to get God’s blessings.
The Azhagar Koil dosai, is prepared with grains offered by the devotees to God. The rice is soaked, dried, pound into a powder, added to the urad dal batter, and deep-fried in ghee.
At the temple, the batter is usually prepared in the morning, and dosa is made and offered in the evening. It looks like something in between an uthappam and a vada. Raw rice is generally used for preparing any offering to God in temples.
But since raw rice alone gives tough dosas, I have added a bit of par-boiled rice too as in my Kanchipuram idli,
To simplify the process, I made the batter by grinding both rice and urad dal. No fermentation is required, though I generally let it sit for around 2 hours before preparing.
Also, I have made the dosas on tawa, rather than deep frying. It turned out so flavorful and yum with chutney.
So, if you are making it as an offering to God, make it with just raw rice in the method mentioned above. Else, do it as per the recipe coming up.
Black urad dal is very nutritious, especially for women. It strengthens the hip joints and eases menstrual issues. So this Azhagar kovil dosai is one way by which we can consume black urad dal.
Do give this recipe a try and am sure it will become a regular in your house too.
O’er to the recipe….
Azhagar Koil dosai
Ingredients
- ½ cup raw rice (Pacharisi)
- ½ cup parboiled rice(ponni or idli rice)
- ½ cup whole black urad dal
- 1 tsp whole black pepper
- ½ tsp cumin
- ¼ tsp ginger powder
- 1 tbsp chopped curry leaves
- 1 tbsp ghee/sesame oil
- ghee/oil for drizzling
- salt as needed
- water as needed for grinding
Instructions
- Measure out the rice and soak it together for 3-4 hours. Grind it to a coarse batter in a wet grinder or mixer. Add the required salt and set aside for 2 hours.
- After 2 hours, coarsely pound the pepper and cumin and chop the curry leaves finely. Add this to the batter along with the ginger powder and ghee/oil. Check and adjust for salt.
- Heat up a tawa, drizzle oil/ghee, and spread out a ladle of batter. You can keep it thick like the uthapam or thin like the dosa.
- Flip over and cook on both sides drizzling ghee as needed. Serve with butter/ idli podi or some chutney.
Hema’s P.S
- I have used ghee for drizzling. You can use any oil too if you do not prefer ghee.
- Increase or decrease pepper according to personal preference.
- Black urad is the main ingredient in this dosa. So do not replace it with white urad dal.
- Black urad dal takes quite some time to soften on soaking. So check if you have soaked enough before grinding.
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