I really do not know how to evaluate this cooking experience.
So, I’m sure that in the past, the failures were all on me. I was extremely careful to follow the directions for making the batter this time and it was exactly as it should be, I think.
“Just like pancake batter”, more or less, as we approached the cook. I made the chutneys and the masala dosa potatoes, which were uniformly tasty.
And then I made the dosas. The first one was perfect, spectacular, the best.
The rest weren’t. I varied temperature, I varied timing, I varied spraying with oil and water as per the recipe. The best I can come up with is that this is a very technical food. That’s not that surprising: crepes are also technical. The dosas when they came out well were super tasty as the best ones I’ve had from food trucks are—the crispy edges of a fermented crepe made from rice and pulses are spectacular—but at the same time, I’m not sure I want to buy the cartons of premade batter and do it myself if the cookery is this finicky. I’ve done crepes to my satisfaction before—these are harder, or at least seem that way.
I’m not going to toss the book this week, but it does bear some further research on my part about exactly what’s going wrong here. It’s not the batter, it’s not (I think) my pan, and if it’s my technique, I want to understand if that’s a simple fix or a “you gotta be a dosa padawan for a long while”. If it’s the latter, then it’s maybe not the right thing for a cookbook.