Adai is a South Indian breakfast dish that is rarely found in restaurants. At restaurants, it is more common to find dosa and its variations, aapam, rava (semolina, suji) dosa and other such dishes. I cannot understand why this is so, since adai is really a lip-smacking dish that is healthy, packed with nutrition. It is also much easier to make than dosa since it needs no fermentation.  Adai is capable of countless variations. Here is the basic adai recipe.

Ingredients
250 gms red or brown rice
50 gms split black gram (urad dal, ulutham parupu)
50 gms Bengal gram (chana dal, kadalai parupu)
2-3 dried red chillies
A pinch of asafoetida
1 sprig curry leaves
Salt to taste
Method
Wash and soak the rice for 12 hours (overnight)
Wash and soak the dals for 1 hour
Combine both and add red chillies, asafoetida, curry leaves and salt
Grind everything together into a coarse paste (add very little water, the batter should be thick)
Batter is ready
Heat a tawa (girdle)
Pour a ladle of the batter in the centre
Using the back of the ladle, spread the batter outwards to form a circular, pancake-like shape (about 1/4″ thick)
Cook one side and the flip over to cook the other side
Transfer to a casserole
Repeat for remaining batter
Serve hot, ideally with a curd based chutney or main dish (it can also be served with several other combinations)
Enjoy!