Dish type: South Indian Breakfast/Supper Dish 

Preparation time: 10 min

Soaking time:  8 to 10 hours

Grinding time: 15 min

Fermenting time: 12 hrs

Yield: 2 kgs

Ingredients   (for preparing batter)

Rice                             500 gms

Raw grated coconut    ½ fresh coconut

Water                          1.5 litres

Salt                              2 tsp approx.

Directions

Soak rice for 8 to 10 hours.

Drain the water after soaking time is over. Save this water for adding to batter later. Grind rice along with raw grated coconut in grinder or mixie.

Keep adding little quantities of water and stir the batter at intervals.

The batter keeps sticking to the sides of the grinder/mixie. Keep clearing the sides off the batter by pushing the batter towards the centre.

Let the grinding continue till the texture of batter becomes smooth.

Transfer it to a vessel of size that holds the batter in less than half its height. Now add salt and mix thoroughly. Add more water since the batter must be of flowing, buttermilk like consistency. To test the consistency, dip a spoon in the batter. If the spoon has a thick coating of the batter, then more water has to be added. This batter doesn’t need fermenting and can be used immediately.

Neeru Dosa Batter is now ready.

Leftover batter can be refrigerated for later use. But when reusing the refrigerated batter, it should be brought back to room temperature. Cold batter sticks to the tawa. Mix the batter thoroughly before preparing the dosa.

To prepare dosa….

Heat a greased tawa (preferably iron) on high flame. Sprinkle few drops of water on the hot tawa. It should sizzle. Now reduce the flame to low.

Mix the batter thoroughly with a ladle. Do this for every dosa. Pour a ladleful of batter on the tawa in circular fashion starting from the outer sides of tawa towards the centre.  Actually, the batter flows by itself towards the centre. Fill big holes if any with the batter. Let tiny holes remain. No need to add oil, unlike many other types of dosas.

Cover it with a lid. Turn the flame to medium and cook the dosa for a few seconds. Neeru dosa cooks quite fast and doesn’t turn brown. So, make sure dosa is not overcooked expecting it to turn brown. When the top layer appears no longer raw and a bit dry, lift the sides by sliding a flat spatula from beneath. No need to flip the dosa to cook the other side. Fold the dosa into half and again into half to form a triangle. Place it on a platter of size bigger than the size of the dosa you prepared. Wipe the tawa clean, before making the next dosa.

When you continue to make more Neeru Dosas, place them away from each other, since they tend to stick to each other when hot. Once cool, they can be placed one above the other in a covered bowl and served warm later. A fully cooked Neeru Dosa will have a rich white colour.

Serve it steaming hot or cool, with coconut chutney, peanut chutney, ginger chutney, sambar, pickle, onion tomato curry or jaggery-coconut mix.

Also view in this blog recipes of “Plain Dosa” and “Curd Dosa”

Chefs’Chat:

Neeru dosa batter can be refrigerated. Before using, thaw it to room temperature. Also you will see a layer of water on top and the batter settled below. Discard this layer of water and add fresh water (it should be at room temperature). Mix thoroughly and if required, do add a pinch of salt.

Typically, Neeru Dosa is pure rich white in colour. 

However also shown in the picture alongside is Neeru Dosa in reddish brown colour. This is because it is made using unpolished red rice. It contains high fibre and has high nutrition value. More about red rice and its recipes some time in our future posts.