Understanding the Besan Sugar Ghee Ternary Phase Diagram -aka Mysore Pak

Any South Indian Materials Engineer worth his salt (or sugar) will know that Mysore Pak is derived by going through many a tie line on the Besan-Sugar-Ghee ternary phase diagram, with many solid phases, liquid phases in equilibrium, non-equilibrium, etc. etc..

But you eventually get to that sweet spot after an hour or so of stirring the mix in various proportions!

For those who are not materials engineers, it might be a daunting task to get to this sweet over that one hour period.

To specially help those, the two videos below show you how to make the south Indian delicacy.

Take heart. If I can do this you can.

Couple of Notes:

1. Make sure you put some Ghee on the pan where you pour the mix finally. (My camcorder did not record that part)

2. If you are not used to touching hot objects, do not touch the pan or tong and try to lick off hot mysore pak. You will get burnt.

3. Indian stores sell pre made Ghee. Expensive, but can save you time.

Hope you have fun making and eating Mysore Pak.

Do post your experience, notes, suggestions in the comments.

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Indignation - the rightful kind..

Well, these days there is rightful and wrongful indignation. This is a documented case of the "rightful" type!

Went to this South Indian food place and asked for the usual Rava Dosa. Got it in 3 minutes, which is a surprise, considering it usually takes at least 10 minutes to 15 minutes from order time.

Got a dosa that had a lot of Rava in it. But the batter was definitely the regular dosa batter!

Now, if you are not picky about a dosa and would consider anything round and crispy brought to you with a cup of sambar and chutney as fair game, stop reading this post. You may not be amused.

On the other hand, if you know enough about Dosa's to answer a quiz question "What is the difference betwen a Rava dosa and Plain dosa?" with anything more than "The Rava dosa has rava in it!", read on.

If you consider yourself to be the Sankara Saastri of Dosa's, this post will definitely increase your heart rate, pulse rate, stomach acid secretion rate, etc. etc. You already know that the basic ingredients in the plain dosa batter are rice, urad dal and fenugreek (vendayam) seeds while the Rava dosa is made from rice flour and rava (cream of wheat) with some green chillies, ginger, cashews, black pepper thrown in as added attractions (the additional ingredients vary widely!)

There is also the issue of fermentation. While the plain dosa batter gets its taste from leaving the batter overnight to rise (yeast action), the rava dosa batter is almost whipped up instantly with some buttermilk to help with integration!

So, if you get a rava dosa, you should not expect it to taste like a plain dosa. In other words, you should not detect the urad dal or yeast.

Now you can always tell me "so what? think you ordered a sada dosa and they put rava in it by mistake.. just eat it!". Which brings us to the "rightful" part. The average bay area restaurant charges 5 bucks for a dosa and 7 bucks for a rava dosa. The 1.5x price is usually due to the complexity and time consuming nature of the rava dosa manufacturing process, compared to the plain dosa. In effect, it is a custom order!

Now, if you throw a cup of rava in plain batter and give it to me in 3 minutes and charge me extra for it, I might ask you to put "kalpooram" in your hand and do deepa aaradhanai!!!

ps. I was at one time moderately allergic to urad dal. Which is why the choice was always a rava dosa! Not anymore..

pps. Not naming restaurant yet, because the owner is going to spot check the cook and let me know if this was really happening!

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