I liked this part
"my dad tasted it and said, “you need to cook it a little more, it is still a little watery and the oil has not completely separated.”
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Is this related to Lonsa from (I believe) coastal India?
I don’t know, but I will look it up.
Perhaps I look like I know what I am talking about! 
I fell in love with this recipe from a cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey, “Madhur Jaffrey’s World-Of-The-East Vegetarian”, that I thought of as vegetarian. I know nothing else about this cuisine, but I’m trying to learn.
ETA So far this commercial product keeps popping up
Ingredients sound quite similar. I haven’t seen a recipe with how it is made yet
Loncha = pickle in Marathi (state of Maharashtra).
I’ve never seen it transliterated with an S (LonSa) though the pronunciation of the “ch” is more a “ts” (tongue front behind teeth) than “ch” (tongue back).
There’s a different word for pickle in every indian language, and ingredients vary slightly but the method is usually similar.
Achaar in Hindi is the best known term — eg Brooklyn Delhi’s Tomato version. Also where Achaat in SE Asia derives from. And Amba in the levant comes from the word for mango — they dropped the word for pickle from the mango pickle 
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Look for “LonCHa”
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This is the product I buy at our local farmers market- that’s why I asked if it was similar
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Thank you!
Dosa project!
We walked to the local Indian store and bought a kilogram of readymade dosa batter, a bunch of fresh coriander leaves and some frozen grated fresh coconut.
I made sambar dal using my mother in law’s recipe and her homemade sambar powder (she was last here 5 years ago and the massive jar of homemade sambar masala powder she left is still pretty potent, I used an extra tablespoon in case it had lost some of its edge). I didn’t have much in terms of veggies to add to the sambar so it ended up being just onions and green beans and canned tomatoes.
My son made the coconut and coriander chutnies using a recipe online (the Cooking with Manali blog). He vetoed tomato chutney (hey, that’s my favourite!).
The test dosa was a sad affair…
Next one a bit better:
Finally, after a change of pan, adding more water to the batter and dribbling a bit of ghee along the edges, a dosa up to standards:
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You like your sambhar thick!
Meal looks delicious, and I love that your son made the chutneys but skipped your favorite 
(First dosa is always a disaster — pan has to get seasoned)
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I sort of misjudged the consistency of the dal. My usual lentil of choice is masoor. Here I used toor which I’m not as familiar with. Next time I’d vary the ratio of lentils to water to get a thinner texture.
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I use toor / tuvar for sambhar and gujarati dal.
Though I’m confused by your water proportion comment. I almost always (pressure) cook plain dal first with just enough water (1:1) , then thin with water to my desired consistency later, after the spices / aromatics are tempered and the dal gets added to them.
Everyone has a different consistency preference, though. We make a relatively thin dal at home (compared to dal fry or kali dal, for eg). If someone prefers a thicker consistency (one of my nephews does), we take out their servings(s) before thinning the rest.
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I tend not to add water later to adjust consistency - I suppose I could just start getting used to doing that. I used a cup (not a measuring cup, just a random one out of the cupboard) and had 2 cups of toor dal to 5 cups water. However, there was a huge amount of scum that I ladled off, so I guess I lost a fair bit of liquid.
My mother-in-law cooks in massive quantities, something which I had neglected to take in to account - so I’ve ended up with around 3 litres of very thick dal…yikes! My son did a big eye roll - saying, don’t you know Thakuma cooks for 5 freezers worth of food? It’s true, my parents in law have 5 freezers in their house in Australia!
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Dal freezes well. Just portion it out first so you don’t have to defrost the whole lot the next time you make idlis or dosa.
Also — sambhar rice / bisibelebhat is delicious!
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Same as with the first crêpe. The French even have a word for it: “Galichon”.
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On one occasion something she made for us was too hot, so I asked for raita. It seemed to be hotter with the raita, so I asked her if she’d done something to the raita. I couldn’t believe my ears when she said raita has no taste so she added some chilli!
People often hope to use the Raita I make for cooling. Unfortunately I always put Green Chili and sometimes a bit of Red Chili Powder in it.
I do warn them but…
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Today for lunch I made some curd rice a la Padma Lakshmi and some green beans poriyal following this recipe mostly
Along with some mango pickle from a jar.
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How did you like the curd rice?
I liked it and the tempering gave it some nice nuttiness. I think I made my rice a little too dry though - I made it a few days ago and it was in the fridge which dried it out even more.
