“Adai” is one of the most nutritious tiffin items loaded with nutrition and health. Traditionally, in our homes, adai is an come-home-after-school evening snack. But many days, its a filling dinner. Adai is a thick crepe like entree, serves with Avial in tamil nadu and other times with Idly Podi or tomato thokku. Its basically made with rice, bengal gram and toor dhal, but in the process of making it more healthier, I also add oats, flax, spinach, cabbage etc, to boost on the fibre intake. Many times, when I take stock of the daily food intake, what I miss at the most, is Fibre.

Fibre rich foods keeps the digestive system in good working order helps prevent a lot of lifestyle driven dieseases, and is packed with protiens and minerals. Its also important that one gradually increases the fibre intake and should be followed by a substantial increase in fluid intake, in order to assist the body to assimilate the fibre consumed.

Adai can be rehashed to include onions, or minus onions to include cabbage, or for those who find the aroma of cooked cabbage unagreeable, corriander and spinach, brocolli and collards etc. I also add two spoons of flax powder, which acts as a catalyst in increasing the fibre, but does not alter the taste even a wee bit.

This is a version with Oats, flax and onions.

INGREDIENTS:

Idli Rice/Boiled Rice          – 1 cup.

Bengal Gram                           – 1/2 cup.

Toor Dhal                                 – 1/2 cup.

Red Chillis                                 – 6 or 7.

Curry Leaves                           – 6 or 7.

Oats Old fashioned                – 1/2 cup

Flax Seed Powder                   – 2 tsp.

Salt                                                – 1 and 1/2 tsp – 2tsp accd to taste

Corriander                                  – 1/4 cup.

Hing                                               – A pinch.

Onions chopped                       – 1.

PREPARATION:

• Soak the boiled rice,  and the dhals seperately and to this add the seven red chillis; Allow to soak for 3 hours. Add the oats to soak for ten minutes only.
• Grind the rice, dhals, oats,red chillis, salt, hing, curry leaves and corriander to a coarse batter. The batter should be almost 80% ground, but not to a smooth paste. Do not make the batter watery – grind the batter with around 1/2 cup of water.
• Keep the batter ready and add some  more chopped curry leaves for added flavour.
• If the batter is a little too thick, feel free to add a little water to make it in to a consistency easy to make in to a dosa form.
• Keep the tava on the stove and when hot, grease with gingely oil.
• Pour the batter on the tava, and circle to form a thick dosa. Make a little hole in the middle of the adai, with your dosa turner and pour some oil to allow uniform cooking. We do this, as the adai is packed with pulses, which needs to be cooked well.
• Immediately add the chopped onion pieces.
• When done on one side, turn over to cook on the other. Keep the stove on a medium flame.
• Serve HOT with Avial or Tomato Thokku.

HINT:

• Vary the taste of the adai to include onions when you grind to get a light flavourful onion adai.
• Cook the adai with chopped cabbage for a healthy alternative.
• You can also soak soya beans, green gram dhals etc to vary the nutrition and taste.

Sending piping hot adais to Meetha`s Monthly Mingle – Ravishing Rice.