Other brunch staples include crisp lentil wafers known as papadums, and yogurt rice cooked with curry leaves, the fresh, aromatic seasoning that flavors many south Indian dishes. But the real staple of south Indian cooking is the dosa, a paper-thin pancake made of fermented lentils and rice. Similar to crepes, dosas are cooked on a hot griddle until airy and crisp, then wrapped around savory fillings like spiced potatoes and onions. Dosas seem impossibly fragile, much too fine to hold in one's hand, as they areUmeant to be eaten. In some restaurants, you can order them stuffed with mashed potatoes and sauteed onions.
Some restaurants serve two kinds of dosas.
Potatoes, spiced with turmeric and mustard seeds, are folded into the cone, which is served alongside a fiery lentil soup known as sambar and a chutney that combines green chilies and fresh coconut. A special rava dosa blends semolina with the fermented lentils, the wheat giving the cake a smooth, almost buttery richness more like a traditional crepe. This have to travel to southern India to taste. New cookbooks like Kamail's are now making southern Indian cooking accessible to the home cook as well. Kamail, who grow up outside of Boston, spent years traveling back and forth to the southern Indian coast of Kerala, where her family is from, collecting recipes for regional specialties.