Crunchy, crispy and caramelised, the perfect triangle of a dosa makes its way to my table. I’ve been waiting the entire meal for this dish and tear into it greedily. This is no ordinary dosa, but a benne dosa that relies on koji, a type of mould that’s used as a starter culture in East Asian cooking, for sweet fermentation. Served with a velvety prawn ghassi, it’s a take on the milagai podi with cashews, curry leaf chimichurri, fried curry leaves and pickled kombu. Before I realise it, it’s gone. A star of the main course at Mumbai’s fine dining restaurant Masque, this koji dosa acquired somewhat of a fan following of its own, before it was swapped out this September when the menu changed for the season.
Strange and wonderful things are afoot in fine dining and home kitchens across the globe, and that’s exactly what I’ve been tracking in season two of Big Food Energy, a podcast that spotlights some of the most exciting food businesses in India and around the world. In the past few years, the dosa, much like the pani puri, has become a favourite amongst fine dining chefs across the world. Interestingly, it’s not just Indian chefs around the globe who are bringing their roots to new diners. International chefs are studying flavour profiles, age-old processes of the Indian kitchen and borrowing traditions to reinterpret them in new, exciting ways. When I first tried the dosa in question, I asked Varun Totlani, Masque’s head chef, about his choice to include it on a fine dining menu. “Having grown up in Mumbai, the food of the city has shaped my palate, which is inspired by everything from my own Sindhi roots to pani puri and dosa. The way we use fermentation techniques in India is unlike anywhere else, and I wanted to spotlight that in this course by combining it with koji.”
The dosa has quite a few fans in the fine dining world. A few years ago, chef Himanshu Saini, the only Indian chef to run a three-Michelin-starred Indian restaurant—Tresind Studio in Dubai—showcased a mini dosai with an avocado pachadi. Inspired after a trip to India, chef Ana Roš, of the three-Michelin-starred Hiša Franko in Slovenia, serves up her version of a delicately-plated dosa with goat, salty yoghurt, curry leaves and wild water cress. Over in New York City, at the legendary Eleven Madison Park, chef Daniel Humm has been experimenting with versions of a tomato dosa. His first iteration in 2018 featured a green tomato relish and whipped aged goat cheese alongside the fermented “pancake” along with a tomato tea with thyme and tomato salad with berries. In 2021, when the restaurant famously turned vegan, it launched a version of the same dish. And for a collaboration with Masque in 2023, chef Humm created a tomato tea with gondhoraj lime and chilli that he served with a dosa with tomato, drumstick and marigold.
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