What You Are Making
Open the lid of a dhokla steamer and the first thing you notice is the smell: warm chickpea flour, a faint tang from yogurt, and a clean, almost bready sweetness. The surface should look dry and slightly domed, with a few tiny holes where bubbles broke through. Press it with a fingertip and it should dip and spring back. Gujarat eats this cake at breakfast, in tiffin boxes and with evening tea, and the version most cooks mean today is the quick one, where a besan and yogurt batter is lifted by fruit salt such as Eno at the last moment. The older route, a batter fermented for a day, is still made, but it needs planning and the instant method gives a sponge of similar lightness in under half an hour.
Three things separate a soft dhokla from a heavy one, and none is hard. The batter must be thick enough to coat a spoon yet still pour. The fruit salt must go in just before the batter does and be folded with a few quick strokes, never whisked. And the steam must be steady, not furious. Get those right and the crumb is full of fine, even holes, and a gentle poke leaves a dent that fills back in.
The Dish’s Backstory
No one disputes that dhokla is Gujarati, and its paper trail runs further back than that of most street snacks. Old Gujarati writing already mentions steamed cakes of fermented gram or rice and lentils, centuries before anybody bought a packet of leavening. The traditional version, khatta dhokla, starts from rice and split chickpeas or besan fermented overnight, much the way idli and dosa batters work in the south, although the two traditions developed on their own. Using Eno or baking soda to raise the batter is a twentieth-century convenience that caught on once fruit salts were easy to find in Indian kitchens. It now rules both home cooking and the stalls that sell dhokla, while the slower fermented cake survives at home and with cooks who prefer its sharper, more complex flavor.
At the Stove, Step by Step
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Prep
Whisk the batter smooth
Combine the gram flour, semolina if used, yogurt, ginger-green chilli paste, turmeric, sugar, salt and oil in a bowl and whisk, adding water in small amounts. Stop when the batter is smooth, thick and still able to drop from the whisk, in the manner of pancake batter. Let it stand 10 minutes so the besan can absorb the liquid. Even in this quick recipe that short pause gives a noticeably better crumb.
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Prep
Get the steam going
As the batter stands, put 2 inches of water in the steamer or pot and let it come to a steady boil. Oil the tin well, including the sides, so the finished cake slides out.
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Cook
Fold in the fruit salt and steam at once
Scatter the fruit salt, or baking soda and lemon, over the batter and fold it in with a few swift strokes. It will fizz and rise. Do not go on stirring, since those bubbles supply the height. Pour at once into the oiled tin and lower it into the steamer straight away. Every minute the fizzing batter sits costs you lift.
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Cook
Steam until the center sets
Put the lid on and steam on medium-high for 15 to 18 minutes. Test by pushing a toothpick into the center, which should come out dry without a trace of batter. Keep the lid down for the first 10 minutes, because cold air rushing in can make the middle drop.
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Cook
Let it rest before cutting
Take the tin from the steamer and wait 5 minutes. After that, loosen the sides with a knife and cut the cake into squares or diamonds while it is still in the tin. If you cut right away the sponge squashes, whereas a brief pause lets it firm up and stay warm.
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Finish
Temper, then let it soak in
Warm the oil in a little pan and add mustard seeds, waiting until they snap. Put in the sesame seeds, curry leaves, slit chillies and asafoetida, then pour in the water, sugar and lemon juice and let it bubble briefly. Spoon the hot liquid over the cut dhokla while the cake is still warm, and leave it for a minute or two to soak in.
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Serve
Scatter the garnish and serve
Strew the coriander over the top, with grated coconut if you have it. Eat warm or at room temperature, normally with green chutney. Dhokla also tastes good cold from the fridge the next day, one reason it travels well in a tiffin.
Stand-ins If You Are Short
Dhokla flour mix from the grocery is a reasonable shortcut when you would rather not start from plain besan, though the crumb often comes out a bit tighter. As listed above, baking soda and lemon can replace fruit salt, with less dramatic rising. Whole-milk yogurt yields the nicest tang and texture, but a thin low-fat yogurt, whisked until smooth, works too.
Dial the Chilli Up or Down
Think of the batter as a quiet canvas and put the heat into the tempering. For less fire, reduce the green chillies in both places, or omit them from the batter and keep only the slit ones in the tempering, which people can leave on the side of the plate. For more, increase the ginger-green chilli paste in the batter and stir a pinch of red chilli powder into the hot oil.
Where It Goes Wrong
A dense, flat dhokla almost always means the batter waited too long after the fruit salt went in, or the lid came off too early and the rise collapsed. A thin batter is the next culprit. It steams into a low, rubbery sheet instead of a tall, spongy cake, so it should coat the back of a spoon thickly. Putting the tin over water that is not fully boiling is a third error, since it slows the first rise and leaves the texture tougher.
Leftovers, Kept and Revived
Keeping: Leave dhokla in a covered box in the fridge for up to 3 days. Because there is yogurt in it, a few hours on the counter is the limit, less on a hot day. You can also freeze the plain cake for up to a month, thaw it in the fridge, steam it briefly, and add fresh tempering afterwards.
Reviving: Steam leftover dhokla for 2 to 3 minutes, which brings back softness far better than a microwave does. A microwave will do in a pinch for 20 to 30 seconds, but the edges can toughen. If the pieces have dried out in storage, add a squeeze of lemon and a spoonful of fresh tempering.
Handle This Part Carefully
There is yogurt in the batter, so avoid leaving it on the counter for long before steaming, especially in warm weather. Mix, add the fruit salt and steam without delay. Steamed dhokla is fully cooked, but like other cooked dishes with dairy it should be chilled within roughly two hours if it is not eaten, and it must never sit out overnight.