Anamika Arun recreates her childhood tea time tradition with an easy microwave dhokla.
By Anamika Arun
My mom used to say, “Only when an advantage goes away, you realize its worth”. How true. Growing up in the lanes and bylanes of Indian streets, overflowing with sweet shops, we never knew its worth. After all, while the weekend breakfast table was generously spread with “kachori”, “jalebi” and “imarti”; the tea time was ritually celebrated with a plateful of “samosas” and dhoklas”. And all it took to enjoy this lavishness was a short run by the man friday and a handful of rupees. Ahha, the days gone by! 
Cut to the present day in modern, broader and cleaner lanes in not so familiar and cosy countries, the advantage of the “halwai shops” have surely flown out of the window. And that too without so much a warning, to learn those addictive treats. So while my cousins back home rarely ever attempt achieving the perfect crust of the “samosas” or wonder on how to get the fluffiest “dhoklas”; here I’m left with little choice but to learn it all the way.
Thankfully having a savory tooth, I haven’t spent hours attempting many of those sweets. Rather I spent that time in fruitfully trying my favourite tea time companion – dhoklas. And with the joy of reliving that advantage of my childhood, I found my solace in a microwave recipe of Nita Mehta.
Dhoklas are basically savory cakes of chickpea flour (traditionally) which is steamed to get a fluffy texture. It occupies a real pride of place in its stage of origin – Gujrat, and loved all across the country.
Soft and Fluffy Dhokla Recipe
- Total Time: 45 minutes
Description
Anamika Arun recreates her favorite childhood tea-time tradition with an easy microwave dhokla.
Ingredients
For Dhokla:
- Besan (Chickpea Flour) – 1 1/2 cups
- Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp
- Ginger paste – 1 tsp
- Sugar – 1 tsp
- Eno Fruit salt -1 1/2 tsp
- Cooking Oil -1 tbsp
- Green chilly paste – 1 tsp
- Salt – 1 tsp
- Soda Bi-carb – 1/4 tsp
- Lemon juice – 2 tsp
- Water – 1 cup
For tempering:
- Oil – 2 tbsp
- Green chillies – 2-3 (slit vertically)
- Water – 3/4 cup
- Mustard seeds (rai) – 1 tsp
- White Vinegar – 1/4 cup
- Sugar – 1 tbsp
- Curry leaves – 3 -4 (optional)
Instructions
- Grease a 7” round flat microwave dish. Set aside.
- Sift beasn and mix water, oil, turmeric powder, salt, sugar, chilly paste, ginger paste to it and make a smooth batter. Add lemon juice, eno fruit salt and soda bi-carbonate. Beat for 3-4 seconds.
- Immediately pour this mixture in the greased dish and microwave uncovered for 6 minutes on high mode. When done, remove and keep aside.
- In a separate small microwave dish, put all the tempering ingredients and microwave uncovered for 4-5 minutes.
- Pour this tempering over the dhokla and let it stand for at least 30 minutes, so that the dhokla abosrbs the moisture and flavours.
- Cut in 1 1/2; pieces and garnish with grated cococnut (optional) or/and chopped coriander leaves.
- Serve with mint-coriander chutney.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 35 mins
Anamika!! I tried this today and it turned out great. Too yummy! Thanks for the recipe.
Do you have recipes for pound cakes that can be made in a microwave oven?
Sumna
Hi Sumna, I’m glad u tried and liked it. will share microwave verison of pound cake soon too!
hi anamika….this is great, can you tell me fruit cakes and more recipes that can be made in microwave
Hey Anamika,
I tried this recipe today and found that my dhokla turned out to be quite dense, not as fluffy as it is supposed to be. How can this be remedied?
Secondly, please advise if ALL the ingredients used should be increased or decreased proportionately, if the quantity has to be more or less.
Thirdly, it would help a great deal if you could also indicate in all your recipes how many people can be served with the portions made.
Thanks and regards,
Taruna
if u want soft & fluffy dhokla dont beat it after adding eno in it, just simply add 2 pouch of eno to your batter..
Hi anamika is it necessary to use both eno salt and sodium bicarbonate , when the purpose of both of them is similar?
thanks for d recipie…………
hi anamika ! u kno it didnt turn as good as it was supposed to. maybe my measurments wasnt good all the turmeric powder was floating at the top and it became all red and there was a pungent smell of eno!!! it was quite ugly if u say so and a waste of ingredients. i do wish it would be nice bcuz i was looking very forward to it
will it be sweet cause the amount of sugar is low.
Today i make dhokla.it is so testy.thanks for the resipe
wow great recipe can you discover more amazing recipe for micro without conv. mode
its really an amazing recipe. tried it nd it ws really wndeful…….thnx
soon yake some more recipies from here….
its really amazing recipe…thnx
I tried but after 6 mins only when i took it out from microwave it ws too hard . Why did that happen ?
i tried making dhokla but it remains uncooked in center nd sides r nearly done n in d process of cooking d center part d semicooked sides become over cooked….help
this is absolutely great recipe thanx very much
this is absolutely great recipe thanx very much plz tell some special dessert
dhokla is nt fluffy as in market
Your recipe is very Good. Am male & tried first time to create Dhokla. I used your recipe. In my first attempt, Dhokla was superb. Everyone liked that :)
Hello anamika,I made these w mum using all purpose flour , soda bicarbonate ,eno and lemon juice .It turned out fluffy but cracked on top which is okay as long as it’s fluffy we are happy haha.Thank you so much for the recipe !! We’ve been craving for dhoklas throughout this week and we only had eno and lime so happy to be stuffing out faces w this one , bless you sweet anamika x
I tried ur receive word by word…But it was a complete disaster.very hard n I hadno option but to throw it.even street dog refused to eat it.waste of time n money.
I so wanted this to work….It came out very dense, almost like a bread. :(
Oh dear, this was so fricking good!