You can cook like a Michelin Star Chef if you find the recipes on-line or buy their cookbooks. I found Michelin Stars Chef Rohit Ghai’s recipe for Dhokla with Apple and Beetroot when I was browsing for beet recipes. I didn’t even know what a dhokla was. This is another recipe that has a lot of steps to it but none of the steps are very hard. I started by making the chutneys first.
I didn’t have the main seasoning ingredient (chana dai) for the tomato chutney so I used my recipe that I developed. I also didn’t puree my tomatoes because I used tiny sweet tomatoes of different colors that I thought looked nice to keep whole.
Then I made the mint chutney….
Mint chutney is easy. Just blend together mint, cilantro, yogurt, green chiles, ginger, lemon juice, chaat masala (I substituted gram masala (a little different but similar…less sour but made up a little with the lemon), cumin, salt.
The apple gets peeled and cut into wedges. You soak the apple in a solution of apple juice mixed with beet powder. I didn’t have apple juice so I cheated and used apple cider vinegar and added some honey…but I DID HAVE BEET POWDER! (See the pretty apple?)
You have to know how to cook beets because you need cooked beets for the recipe. You then make a tempering mix that you cook up. You heat up the seeds in a pan with the oil till you hear the seeds popping. Then that goes over the beets made of – onion seeds (I substituted poppy seeds because I didn’t have onion seeds), cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds, fennel seeds, oil, salt, sugar and vinegar. This is the first thing that goes over the beets.
This dish also calls for something called ghati masala. It’s the tasty crumble topping that you see sprinkled over things in the picture. It’s really meant to be sprinkled more generously but I wanted to show what I made so you could see. (I will add more when we eat the plates).
You heat up some oil and cook garlic and just blend together a combination of sesame seeds, coconut, roasted peanuts, chili powder, coriander, tamarind paste, and salt.
Now you make the dhokla.
Chef Rohit Ghai’s recipe calls for a combination of gram flour, semolina, lemon juice, ginger, green chili, yogurt, salt and something called fruit salt that is a leavening agent. This mixture gets steamed. I didn’t have the right flour or the fruit salt so I used a combination of chickpea flour, corn meal and regular a.p. flour, baking powder, and eggs. I also baked mine because I don’t have the right dishes to steam it all. It’s kind of similar but not what the chef did………..
Your not done yet.
Now you have to make a tempering liquid to pour over the dhokla you just made. You heat up oil with mustard seeds and asafoetida. When the seeds begin to crackle add curry leaves and green chilies. After it cooks you add sugar and water. This liquid gets poured over the dhokla.
Now put it together and add some radish, pea shoots, cilantro (If you have any left) and go heavier on the ghati masala than I did.
A SPECIAL THANKS!!!!! To Michelin stars Chef Rohit Ghai for sharing such an incredible recipe with the world!
