Ponganalu/Paniyaram

Dosa is almost everyone’s favourite!!!! When many of us make dosa batter at home, we make huge quantity that we end up making dosa for more than 3 days and sometimes a week. That was the scene at home when I was growing up and thats when my mom would make these cute little dosa muffins (:-p) and we just gulped it. Its quite famous in many parts of South India and is called by various names. Gunta Ponganalu or Punugulu or Paniyaram. Whatever the name is, it tastes yummy and tastes the best when it is done at least 2 days after fermenting the dosa batter.

This can be made with any dosa batter recipe (store bought and home made). Here are the additional ingredients that you will need to make Ponganalu.

Ingredients:

• Soaked Channa Dal (Bengal gram, split chick peas). This should be soaked for about one hour before adding it to the mix.
• Chopped Onions (If you want the ponganalu to be very stuffed, you can add more of onions)
• Chopped chillies
• Coriander
• Chopped Ginger (optional)
• Cumin seeds
• Salt to taste (a bit more than whats required for dosa batter)

Procedure:

• For making this, you require the Ponganalu pan, which pretty much looks like a muffin pan. You can buy these pans here (India) and here (USA).  Its pretty much hassle free to use and comes with a wooden stick kind of spatula to remove the ponganalu from the pan. 
• Mix the chopped onions, chillies, coriander, cumin seeds and soaked channa dal into the dosa batter. Mix it well and add little water to adjust the consistency. It should pretty much be in medium consistency.
• Place the pan on the stove (medium flame) and add just a drop of oil in each of the impressions and pour the batter in each of them. Make sure you don’t fill it up completely. Close the lid and let it cook.
• In about 2-3 minutes, check if the bottom portion is getting cooked and turn it over. To turn it, use the turner, that general comes with the pan or use a spoon. I would not prefer a fork.
• Cook both sides, until both the sides have brown spots on them. Let it cook completely and thats it.. PONGANALU are ready!! Serve it with any chutney of your choice. My favourite is the Peanut chutney.
• Just repeat the process and enjoy!!! I bet you cannot stop gulping 🙂

Enjoy the weekend!!!

-Signing off