Bacon dosa with miso sauce, blue cheese dip and curry leaf barbecue sauce

I like bacon. I cannot lie.

My standing instruction to family and friends visiting from abroad is: Don’t bring me chocolates or sweets, bring me bacon. I’m quietly building up a private hoard just in case there’s an apocalyptic porcine meltdown.

The inspiration for this recipe was a rather poorly thought out bacon dosa that I had on my first morning in Kochi. It was a regular, crispy, sada dosa folded over pieces of crisp bacon and served with sambhar and coconut chutney. I liked the idea, but I didn’t think a crispy dosa was appropriate. A home-style dosa, or uttapam, seemed to be a better platform which is why I used that as my base. I also felt that if you were going to introduce something so foreign as bacon, then you had to create a supporting ecosystem. Sambhar and chutney are wholly inadequate.

But that I suspect is the Bombay boy talking. Kochi does great Malayali food: apart from a few cafés at Fort Kochi it’s a desultory wasteland when it comes to international food, so I doubt there’s much demand for anything remotely adventurous.

That said, I am quite pleased with my version of a bacon dosa, and, even more so with the accompanying sauces and dip. The biggest challenge was not finishing them off before the dosas were ready. Naturally, you can tweak them a bit. I’d probably add a few more vegetables to the miso sauce, add some more piquancy to the barbecue and play around with the cheeses for the dosa.

Most grocery stores in India, or Mumbai at least, sell freshly made dosa batter. It worked fine for me. However, if you’d like to make it from scratch, there’s a recipe from South Indian culinary specialist Shri Bala at the bottom.
Ingredients
For the dosa
240 ml store-bought dosa batter
40 ml water
a pinch of salt
20 gm processed cheese, grated
1 rasher streaky bacon
1 rasher back bacon, finely chopped
4 tbsp tomatoes, chopped
40 gm fontina cheese, grated
For the miso sauce
250 ml chicken stock
1 tsp miso paste
1 tsp vinegar
½ tsp honey
2 tbsp carrots, diced small
1 tsp sesame seeds, toasted
1 tsp cornflour mixed with 3 tsp water
For the blue cheese dip
50 gm mild Danish blue cheese
50 gm mayonnaise
1 tsp garlic, finely minced
For the curry leaf barbecue sauce
10-12 curry leaves
1/3 cup tomato ketchup
50 ml stock/ water
1 tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp onion, finely minced
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 tsp hot sauce (Tabasco, Sriracha etc)
½ tsp honey
¼ tsp mustard powder
½ tsp prepared mustard (grainy, honey, mustard, Dijon)
¼ tsp black pepper powder
1 tsp oil, to fry
Method
Prepare the sauces and dip first.
The blue cheese dip is the easiest. Just blend all the ingredients together in a blender or a hand whisk. I wanted a more crumbly texture so I mashed the cheese with a fork and mixed everything together with a fork.
(You can make this the night before and refrigerate. Serve at room temperature.)

For the curry leaf barbecue sauce
Heat the oil, add the curry leaves and fry till they change colour. Remove and keep aside. In the same oil fry the onion and garlic till soft, but not browned.
Add the remaining ingredients. Stir well, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes till thickened, but of pouring consistency.
Turn off heat and stir in reserved curry leaves.
(You can make this the night before and refrigerate. Serve at room temperature or slightly warm.)

For the miso sauce
Heat the stock. Stir in the miso paste, vinegar and honey.
Bring to a boil.
Stir in the cornflour and cook till the sauce thickens.
Remove from heat.
Add the chopped carrots and sesame seeds.
Prepare this last, just before serving and serve hot.

For the dosa
Fry the streaky and bacon together in a crêpe or dosa pan till crisp. Remove and chop the streaky bacon when cool. Mix the two bacons together and divide into four portions.
Leave the rendered fat in the pan.
Divide the batter into four. Thin each one with about 10 ml water. Stir in the processed cheese and salt to taste.
Heat the pan with the fat on a medium flame. Pour the batter in the centre and spread to form a circle. It should be a little thick, almost like an uttapam.
Spread about 1 tbsp of the chopped tomato, 1 tsp of the fontina and one part of the chopped bacon.
Cook till the base is crisp and brown.
Turn over and cook for about a minute.
Remove and plate. Serve two per person or eat them all yourself.

Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Serves: 2

Shri Bala’s dosa batter
Ingredients
3/4 cup parboiled rice
1/4 cup raw rice (Ponni or Sona Masoor)
25 gm poha
1/4 cup full white urad
1 egg, beaten
Method
Soak the rice and urad together for a minimum of 2 hours.
Grind together into a smooth batter with a little water. When it’s almost smooth add in the poha and continue grinding for about 5 minutes more. Remove. Add salt. Leave to ferment overnight.
Bring the batter to room temperature. Mix in the beaten egg. This batter doesn’t need to be thinned down
Follow the steps as above though this batter should make about 6 dosas.