Indian Fast Food!

A few weeks ago, while visiting Nashville, my friend Greg and I popped into the international market inside the Nashville Farmer's Market. Though it's called "international market," I'd say about 80 percent of what they sell is Indian groceries, which made me super happy. We have Indian markets in Memphis, but they're all WAY out east in the 'burbs so I don't get to them often.

Greg and I wandered around the store, grabbing all sorts of things we didn't need. I stumbled onto a box of bhel puri mix (my fave Indian chaat!) that I just had to have, and then I found some pre-made dosa batter in the cold case. Score! I love dosa, but I've never been brave enough to try making the rice-lentil batter from scratch.

I finally got around to trying both of these convenience foods tonight! I whipped up the Bhel Puri to snack on while I made the potato filling for the dosa.

Bhel puri is an Indian snack made with puffed rice and crispy crackers. You mix the crunchy bits with chutney, cilantro, onion, tomato, and usually cooked potatoes. This mix actually had already had dehydrated tomato, cilantro, and onion, so it truly was fast food. But I chopped up some fresh veggies to add to it. I left the fresh potato out since I was putting taters in my dosa. This box had a big bag of the crackers inside and four individual serving packets of tamarind chutney. This was great, and I'm hoping I can find this mix at one of our Indian groceries here!

For the dosa, I wanted to do Masala Dosa, but then I got the bright idea to add peas and make it Samosa Dosa! The wet batter was so easy to work with. You just add a tiny bit of water to make it pourable and cook it up, crepe-style, in a hot, oiled skillet. For the filling, I used this recipe from the New York Times.

The tub of dosa batter makes 12 dosa, so I can't wait to eat this again tommorow! And the next day! And the next!