Khaman dhokla is a very popular Gujarathi dish usually made as a snack. Over the years, it has become a family favourite, more so of my elder son, who simply loves it with tangy green chutney.
The main ingredient is chickpea flour or besan. This is an instant variety of dhokla which means it does not need to be fermented.
You can call it a savoury gluten-free steamed cake, yeah and eggless too. Due to the addition of Eno or baking soda, it turns out light, soft and fluffy.
Outside Gujarat, dhokla implies Khaman dhokla. In fact, I never knew there were so many other varieties of dhokla which use either grains or lentils or both and are naturally fermented.
I first came across this khaman dhokla at a community dinner when we lived in Odisha. They had sliced it into neat rectangles and I grabbed it thinking it was our South Indian mysurpa 😀 .
Though it did not taste anything like the mysurpa, it was soft and spongy and I thoroughly enjoyed it. After that, it was completely out of mind.
I started making it at home only after we relocated to Qatar when I got hold of a recipe from a neighbour who made it for a getto. From there I started my numerous trials and am finally at this 😀 . Now it’s a completely different recipe that I have come up with after all the trials.
Beating the batter well makes it light and fluffy. Just like in a cake beating incorporates air and makes the cake soft, so also beating makes the dhokla light, airy and soft.
Here, I have used a whisk, you can use the beater too. Once the leavening agent (eno or baking soda ) is added, mix it up quickly and steam it.
The steamer should be hot and steaming when you place the moulds in it. There are dhokla plates available just like the idli plates. Still, at least among the people I know, it is steamed on a big plate and then cut into squares before serving.
But this cutting part was always messy for me. Somehow, I could never get a clean cut. So inspired by my Kanchipuram idli, I steamed them in steel tumblers in my frying pan 😀 .
It came out spongy soft and we relished it with thin plain kadhi. You can also serve it with green chutney.
This recipe gives the best dhokla that you can ever have. Do try it my way once and I can assure you this will become your go-to recipe for Khaman dhokla.
O’er to the recipe…
Khaman dhokla
Ingredients
- 1 cup (- 2tbsp) Chickpea flour/besan/Kadalai mavu
- 2 tbsp rice flour
- 1 green chilly
- 1 small piece of ginger
- juice of ½ lemon
- 1 tsp sugar(or as needed)
- 1 big pinch of hing
- ¼ cup curd/yogurt
- ¾ cup water
- salt as needed
- ½ tsp baking soda (or 1 tsp Eno)
For tempering
- 2 tsp oil
- ¼ tsp mustard seeds
- ¼ tsp white sesame seeds(optional)
- few green chillies
- few curry leaves
For lemon water
- juice of half a lemon
- salt and sugar as needed
- ¼ cup water
Instructions
- Measure out 1 cup of chickpea flour/besan. Remove 2tbsp from it and add 2tbsp of rice flour. Get the other ingredients ready.
- Roughly grind the green chilly and ginger in a mixer using a bit of water from the reserved ¾ cup of water.
- In a bowl take the flour and add the ground mix, the remaining water and the rest of the ingredients in the 1st list with the exception of eno or baking soda.
- Mix well and let this rest for around 15 minutes. Meanwhile grease the dhokla plates or any other mould that you want to use liberally with oil.
- After 15 minutes of resting time, heat up the steamer and beat the batter with a wire whisk for at least 2-3 minutes.
- Once you see a lot of bubbles formed, add the eno or baking soda. Give it a quick mix and immediately transfer it to the plates or moulds and steam for 15 minutes.
- Once it is done, let it cool for a minute or two and unmold it onto a wide plate. Prepare the lemon water with the ingredients mentioned under 'for lemon water '
- Heat up 2 tsps of oil in a small pan. Add the mustard seeds and the sesame seeds. Once it splutters add the green chillies and curry leaves. Add the lemon water to the tempering and let it boil for half a minute and turn off the stove.
- Spoon or pour this tempering over the dhokla, in a way that all the dhoklas get soaked in this tempering. Garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves and grated coconut.
Hema’s P.S
- The ratio is, for 1 cup of flour, you need to add 1 cup of liquid. You can modify the curd-to-water ratio as per preference.
- The addition of chillies, lemon and sugar is up to personal choice, though the dhokla tastes best when all the tastes are balanced.
- In the tempering too, all the tastes of sour, sweet, salt and spice should be balanced.
- Cumin seeds can also be used in tempering. I have not used it here.
- For this recipe, I used baking soda.
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