Neer Dosa

For all those who are die-hard fans of my mum's Neer Dosa, I hereby give you the recipe. The second reason why this is being documented is that I seem to have a memory of a goldfish or more close to home, seems to have developed a Ghajini complex whereby things that are not written down are forgotten. I figure I do not have enough surface area over my body (or the pain threshold) to have the recipes tattooed so have resorted to writing it down here for my own sake.

Ingredients:

1 cup kolam rice

2 cups dosa rice (you will get this in your local shop)

 1 onion - Chop half of it, the other half will be used for oiling the tawa.

1/4 coconut (grated)

Salt

Oil

Method:

1) Wash the rice and soak it water overnight.

2) Discard the water.

3) Grind the rice, onion, coconut in a mixer till it is a fine paste (I mean really really fine, put a drop of the batter on the tip of your index finger and rub it against the tip of your thumb, it should feel like paste).

4) Place in a bowl, add salt and water to make it a fairly runny batter (it should look like coconut milk at this stage only a little thinner).

5) Heat a dosa tawa (I really cannot help you here, this tawa is a speciality from Mangalore, and I don't think it is available anywhere else, you could try your local Mangalore stores, they sometimes keep this tawa or you could try get pally with your friends from Mangalore so they bring you back one on their annual pilgrimage to Mangalore).

6) Dip the onion that you reserved earlier, cut side in oil and run the cut surface all over the tawa, this way the flavour of the caramelised onion gets infused in the oil and ultimately the Neer Dosa.

7) Take a ladle full of the dosa batter and pour on the tawa. Since the batter is runny it will spread all over the tawa, there will be a few gaps, pour some more batter over them, but ensure that you don't put too much batter (else the dosa will be too thick). The best Neer Dosa look a lot like crochet handkerchiefs.

8) Cover and let it cook for about 30 odd seconds

9) Uncover and fold the dosa like you would fold a handkerchief.

10) Remove from the tawa and keep aside.

11) Serve with coconut chutney (refer earlier post for recipe).

Tip:

1) The dosa should not burn, it should only cook for 40 seconds tops, the whiter the dosa the better the cook you are :)

2) The onion is optional, you can eliminate the onion that you put in the batter. Instead once the dosa is ready, you can put sugar and grated coconut before you fold the dosa, I assure you it is a hit with kids.

P.S.: I don't have a picture at the moment, it will follow.