(group chattering)
(fast-paced music)
- Hello, welcome to the channel.
- Today we challenge our classically trained chef Ben
to master a technique he's never tried before,
with the help of an expert.
- The thing is if you're anything like us
you're probably quite impatient.
So we're only gonna give him an hour
to learn everything he can, before he returns to the studio
to demonstrate his new skills to us.
He's learning from the expert, he's not here.
Why would you cut to that camera?
(upbeat music)
- Always up for learning new stuff,
but this isn't the safety of the Sorted Kitchen.
So Prakash Dadosa is at the restaurant,
we've obviously got a number of chefs,
but he's come in a bit earlier than the others today.
Back home, we'd have really thick iron dosa tawas.
And it's all about that heat retention.
It's a bit like cooking in a cast iron casserole, you know?
So it's all about that heat retention.
We've tried to find something that replicates it,
it kind of works.
Sometimes I feel the ones back home are much better.
- [Ben] So then you're waiting
for the colour to just shine through.
(upbeat music)
- And you've eaten many of these haven't you?
- Yes, never made one though.
- You're gonna, hopefully you'll be making one
by the end of the day.
So let's start with the ultimate basic, right?
That's the batter in there.
It's a rice and lentil batter
with a little bit of fenugreek in there.
You make it overnight and then you sort of
allow it form-
- You can see the bubbles. - You see the bubbles.
- [Ben] When would a dosa be eaten?
What time of day are we talking?
- Traditionally breakfast.
Now obviously it's become a lot more popular,
and you get it all times of day and night.
This is obviously plain.
There's a version we do with chilli and cheese.
It's one of my favourite flat breads.
So Prakash, come on.
- Show us how it's done. - Dosa in the next 10 minutes,
quickly.
(energetic rock music)
- [Chef] Little bit of oil, water.
- That's to clean, but it also tells you whether
it's at the right temperature-
- So you're listening for- - 'cause you hear that sizzle.
- Exactly.
- So it's almost like a cup measure without a handle,
but a very flat bottom. - Exactly.
So it's a measure. - Yeah.
- It's also the perfect instrument-
- Oh, I see. - to spread your dosa out.
And there was no oil on it,
but this is where the oil, butter, ghee,
sesame oil we use.
We use that for some of our traditional dosas.
So it's an untoasted sesame oil.
But if you'd put the oil on, it wouldn't have stuck.
And if it wouldn't have stuck,
you wouldn't get that beautiful golden colour.
So you kind of want it to stick to the pan
which wouldn't happen if there was oil.
- [Ben] So what are we looking for?
Crispy?
- So, golden.
Evenly golden, crispy,
and you know something that hold this shape.
The flavour is really important.
So that's something you can't see, but you gotta taste.
A little bit of that hint of that bitterness,
from the fenugreek, you get that beautiful
sort of lentil, savoriness.
You get rice to give you that nice carb,
bringing it all together.
If you went to India, you'd never eat dosa
without chutneys and sambals. - Yeah.
- Go ahead and try one of these.
That's my favourite, let's see what do you think?
So have a taste, Ben.
Remember, as soon as that goes in your mouth,
you got one hour to ask us as many questions as you want.
And then you're gonna make,
you're gonna be making- - I get to practise, right?
- this for me and the rest of the team back in the studio.
So first thing I test in the kitchen.
As I walk in, I try the chutneys, the sambals,
if these are not right, these are not fresh,
then you know that there's something wrong generally.
- So good.
It's the cross between the texture and the ferment.
So thin you can literally see the bubbles through it,
because of the ferment's mixture.
- And it's the perfect, little spoon.
Spoon up anything you want.
You gotta get curries in, you get chutneys in.
- Right, so.
- Just a little bit on it. - Little bit of oil.
- [Chef] Yeah that's it, that's it.
(upbeat music)
- Oh. - Yeah, yeah.
- You made it look so easy!
- Oil. - There's definitely
lumpy bits, we need to oil from the top.
Yeah, oil from the top, when you see it browning.
Yeah.
- Definitely browning in places first.
- You can flatten it out a little bit, yeah.
(Ben laughs)
- They're being very polite and saying it's not terrible,
but I think it fairly is.
There's definitely a knack.
And if you could literally see inside my brain,
and all the cogs turning to make sure
I was taking on all the advice.
I think if you've got the batter right,
and the grill is at the right temperature,
and then you've got a level steady hand, it's okay.
But there's three things there that can go very wrong.
Getting there, but still a little bit saggy.
I'm gonna go with saggy as opposed to crispy.
- Now, and this is the irony,
doing this at home is gonna be even harder.
So we're gonna go back to the studio,
and I want you to do it,
even if you get this right in the studio,
you've got 10 on 10.
- Karan it's so good to have you back, thank you.
- Ebbers, can you do it?
- Look, it's really easy in the restaurant.
When you've got professionals,
who've done all the mise en place.
We're gonna try and do it here and see how we go.
- Get your dosas out,
in 3, 2, 1,
dosa. (buzzer rings)
- So look, it is a fermented rice and lentil batter.
- He's got that right.
(group laughs)
- Tick.
- And I'm good at maths, it was 75% ratio rice to lentil,
with also some fenugreek, so all have been soaked,
and basically into a blender,
blend it up and then leave it to ferment.
- I've never seen him more nervous.
This is amazing.
- The technique takes some getting used to,
even in the restaurant.
I'm scared about these pans, they're different.
- I would drain that completely.
Before you- - Karan, Karan-
- Hang on. - This is when,
this is where you're going wrong.
- Yeah, let him make the mistake.
- Fine.
- And then correct him- - 'Cause that's what he does.
- because it's better for all of us.
- That's what he does to us every single day.
- [Karan] Done, done, done.
- No idea how much of this,
'cause the batter was already made for me, and I didn't ask.
- Just go easy on that.
- Yeah a little pinch. - Stop it!
(blender whirs)
So you're looking for something,
the consistency of like yoghourt,
but a bit more stretchy,
but that will come after fermenting.
- If your blending this at home and always go thicker,
then water down, because once you water down,
there's nothing you can do.
- Oh, okay.
- So at this point it needs to ferment
room temperature overnight. - Yep.
- Do you season it now or in the morning?
- Ebbers, Ebbers, Ebbers - Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa!
- There was time for this. - Time to commit.
You had your chance to learn,
what are you gonna do?
- Season it afterwards.
Might affect the ferment.
- Season it now.
(group cheers and laughs)
But look, everyone does it differently.
Everyone does it a little differently.
- [Ben] Oh, yeah I do it this way.
- Yeah, exactly.
- Right, so that's pretty much there.
Alternatively, we found out you can just buy a wet mix.
I don't know, I have no idea,
do you rate these kind of
pre-made mixes? - These are fantastic.
So you get dry mixes, which are just mix in water.
You get these ones, which are even better.
Sometimes if you are in sort of,
areas of London where there's a big community,
you'll have restaurants that actually make them
and sell them in bags.
- Oh wow.
- A bit like we've done with him, right now.
We just sent him with a box of our restaurant batter.
- So important to reference
that you're already cheating here by using
Karan's batter rather than your own one.
- We could wait 'til tomorrow morning
or we could use Karan's batter and do it now.
- Hmm, hmm. - Okay fine, do it now.
- So you can see it's kind of thick, aerated,
because of the ferment bubbles,
but it's just got a consistency that's almost stretchy.
So we've got a cast iron pan
and we've got a regular crepe pan.
Both have been preheating.
Should we try the crepe pan first?
'Cause I feel like that's the one that everyone will have.
Although I feel like this will be the better one.
- Make it as accessible as possible.
- Do both together, man.
Two hands.
Two hands, two cups. (Jamie laughs)
Come on.
- Whose side are you on, Karan?
This is the little dishy thing,
both to ladle, portion, and spread.
But again, it's quite special.
So if you haven't got one,
probably a dariole mould, it's gotta have a flat bottom,
possibly a measuring cup.
Again, you need a flat bottom.
So, going for bog standard, I'll use that.
- Now, this is the bit I get really nervous about.
(group laughs)
- So a little bit of oil and a splash of water.
- Oh, now they don't mix.
- To see where we're at, and then just wipe it down.
It needs to be dry, but that just takes the temperature down
before you add the batter in.
So using the bottom of the...
Oh I'm gonna say not hot enough.
- I wouldn't have used that,
because I would've, I think that's a little too big.
You want full control.
You want something light.
That dariole mould was, probably have been better.
Even some of the best professionals would struggle
on a pan, on a non-stick pan particularly.
That's why my go to is always the cast iron.
- Definitely not hot enough.
Definitely gone with a tip of thicker to start off with,
to be safer.
But this is gonna be far too thick on the first one.
Second one, we're gonna thin it down.
- Yeah.
- In fairness your first pancake's always duff isn't it, so.
- 100%.
But listen man, I mean there are different techniques
of dosas. - This is the one
with the fluffy middle.
- No you get, you get, oh, sorry.
- Right here.
- [Karan] Had to see it,
there's stuff in the way I can't see it.
- You don't wanna see it Karan, it's not my best effort.
(group laughs)
- That's not too bad, Ben.
That's not too bad at all.
Let's let's have a look at that.
Bring it over, yeah.
But that color's great.
- Second time I'm going cast iron,
- That's actually very good. - maybe a slightly
smaller mould, like the dariole.
- [Karan] It's very good.
- See what happens.
- Wow.
- [Karan] Good batter.
- It is the batter that makes that, it really is.
- Ooh.
- Oh. - Oh.
- It's an ooh. - You've got to be super quick
because it starts setting.
- Yeah it starts to set and because it's not quite as smooth
at the bottom, it's slightly concave,
I've got a different vibe going on.
So home equipment is causing a challenge at the moment.
- What is it they say, Barry, about bad workmen?
What do they blame?
- Something about their tools?
- Hmm. - Not sure.
- Two of my tools are stood on the side.
(Karan laughs)
(pan sizzles)
- Oh, that pan is cold. - Yeah.
- That was a cold pan.
I think there was too much water down there.
- The cast iron, it hasn't worked at all.
I've given up with the cast iron.
- So you're going against Karan's recommendation?
- I'm going against this pan.
- Sounds like you're going against-
- You know he wants you to stay, Karan.
- Yeah, that needs a proper scrub to get that off now.
- Is that your pan you brought from home?
- Yeah, and I'm thinking about
the hours I'm gonna take to re-season it.
- Yeah. (group laughs)
- Whereas this one, I feel like we've got now.
- But you see, that's one more thing.
You see how it's sort of come off itself, almost.
And that's why you'll never get that beautiful browning,
that you'd get with a cast iron which,
the other one is browning.
- What I really like is,
usually it's Ebbers standing on the side,
giving us all of the judgement
and all of the snarky comments.
It's really nice to see him get a dosa his own medicine.
- Oh no. - Oh yeah.
- Seeing if it's the bottom to blame.
Oh, oh.
- Practise makes perfect.
And you might not want to achieve that super crisp dosa.
You might just wanna go with something thicker and softer.
You can see his commitment.
You can see he's gonna be making this.
He's gonna run down that batter.
He's gonna be making this all evening now.
- It's good fun. - As you can see,
each one is a little better, yeah.
The thing is, you know, they're savoury,
so you can actually stuff them with whatever you want.
- Yeah. - Just go crazy.
- Boys, three options,
and I feel like they were getting progressively more
crispy cone shape and dosa-like,
but we've also got two of those side dishes to serve with,
but we've left one empty because there's one
we absolutely loved at the restaurant.
We want to steal the recipe from Karan.
- It's the easiest one to make.
And I'm gonna come there and show you how it's done.
- Coconut chutney.
- So well done on the dosas.
And honestly, I am so scared
of cooking on that non-stick pan.
That's a great look for a non-stick pan.
This one, first one, will always be a little patchy,
just like a pancake.
That one's a great colour, that one's great.
- Ebbers I have to say, from our point of view,
we gave you an hour to learn it.
And I think you did a pretty good job, so.
(hands clapping) - Yeah, well done.
- The important thing is, they taste great.
Albeit that's that's the Hopper batter,
but it's really good fun.
- Anyway, chutney.
Coriander chutney, tomato, one of my favourites,
but that coconut is traditional.
It doesn't look like much, and it's so easy to make.
Graded fresh coconut, this is not desiccated.
You can buy this in frozen packs.
Again the same shops that sell you the dosa batter
could sell you these as well.
- What's the first step?
- First step, get a blender.
Slightly bigger than that if you can find one,
but we'll make do.
- It isn't everything, Karan?
Look, my pan was smaller, my hob's smaller.
- Little bit of coconut in there.
Again, different households
have different ways of making these.
There'll be a lot of you watching this,
who've had this growing up.
About sort of two parts of that, to a part of these.
Now try one of these.
I know it looks like dried lentils, but it's very deceptive.
So it is chana dal or gramme lentils,
small ones that are dried but then they're toasted.
So this is a very important ingredient.
We call it daria dal.
It gives you that amazing nuttiness.
- That is delicious on it's own.
- It is really nice, isn't it?
Really nice and nutty,
has a powdery texture to them,
which the coconut will sort of counter.
Green chilli, gonna go in with one,
you can go in with a little more,
and then just a little bit of fresh ginger.
Then a little bit of salt.
So we'll add a splash of water in now.
Again, you don't want to go too thin.
- That doesn't feel like any of the ingredients
that I would put in a chutney.
- Chutney is basically a blend of fresh ingredients.
Usually not cooked.
(blender whirs)
Let's get a little bowl, straight into a serving bowl.
That's great.
So I like it quite coarse, you can go a little thinner.
You don't want it to be a complete paste.
That's the base of the chutney,
you could have it just like that.
It's super fresh, really nice and nutty.
So tempering is this process of adding flavours on,
extracting flavours from spices.
But when you temper them in oil,
they release all those amazing aromas into the oil.
These are a different kind of the white lentils,
urad lentils we call them.
- Lentils are one of those things,
that I think we always associate as the staple,
the legume, the base to something,
not using it as a tempering, as a spice, as a flavour,
as a texture in the chutney.
We never consider to cook with them in the other way,
other than the lentil. - Mhm.
And this is the fun thing about South Indian food
like they would go into curry powders.
They'd go into spice blends.
You know, the spicy thing we put the chilli powder,
we put in the dosa in the morning,
that's made with lentils as well.
Chuck your mustard seeds in, it can get a little hot,
you don't want them to start popping.
You don't want to overdo those lentils,
because then they go really hard.
But at the same time,
you don't want underdo them because they stay hard.
Curry leaves an option ingredient, but I love them,
so I find every excuse to use them.
And then chilies.
I'm not gonna break these up,
but you could break them up if you want it quite hot.
Just gonna go, with the whole chilis.
You can always smell that amazing nutty-
- The curry leaf. - Yes the curry leaf's
coming out.
And that's it, that's your flavour bomb.
Curries, you do it on potatoes.
That's it, done.
Leave it in there, serve it, it looks beautiful.
And then just give it a nice stir.
Mix it all through. - And everyone gets in,
with the dosa or any other breads.
- Come on boys.
- Let's get some normals in to taste this,
'cause it's unreal. - Let's taste this.
So there we go, let's give this a nice stir.
- An incredible team effort.
- [Barry] I'll take your fluffy one, Ben.
- You can have my fluffy one.
Use it like a napkin.
- [Karan] He's actually using it like a napkin.
(Jamie laughs)
- Oh Jesus.
- That's fine.
- [All] Cheers. - Go for it.
Very traditional, the cheers.
You get the crunch, right?
- Yeah. - It's really nutty.
And that's from the lentils.
- I wast expressing the heat.
But most importantly, you can still taste the dosa.
- They are world class, chutneys.
I mean, it's a shame we don't have
world class dosas to dip in them.
(group laughs)
But, you know, I think you've done
a pretty good job. - Give me a few more years.
- I think you've done a pretty good job.
- I think he's done a phenomenal job,
especially for home settings.
That hob was difficult, like I said,
even tempering mustard in that was difficult.
So we really gave him a challenge.
And I've now got a challenge of re-seasoning my pan, but.
(group laughs)
- He's not gonna let that one go.
- I'm not gonna let him live it down, no.
- You've really done one, Ben.
Right, you saw the whole process.
How do you think Ebbers got on,
comment down below, let us know.
- And also thank you Karan for coming down.
This is out of this world,
and I couldn't recommend Hoppers any more.
You've gotta go to Karan's restaurant,
all the links are downstairs,
and also give him a follow on all the socials.
Your stuff is just outrageous.
- Thank you.
(group applauds) - Thank you.
- And you know, you're always welcome.
There's always more skills to learn.
(beep)
- If I had gas right now, at least I can hear it.
And I know exactly what it's doing to the pan.
(Jamie laughs) - Sorry.
- Whereas this sort of hybrid induction hob,
makes it so much-