Neer dosai

It was a wonderful memorial day weekend drive to Munising, Michigan. What a picturesque city! Looks like God has taken his time to paint this city to perfection. Such a relaxed, slow life. many of them own a boat or a kayak and hit the lake for a wonderful sail.

Last week, my Aunt gave me this neer dosai recipe. And a quick googling, found out this is what few call as thengai dosai (including my mom), or kanji dosai (you add little bit of kanji thanni) or some even add little sour buttermilk for an additional flavour. I tried this time with little kanji thanni. While cooking rice, (I generally cook in microwave), I retained some of the kanji thanni (about 1/2 cup).

1 cup par boiled or raw rice
1/4 cup shredded coconut
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup kanji thanni (Or substitute with butter milk)

Method:
1. Soak rice for about 5 hours. Grind to a nice paste adding water and salt.
2. Add buttermilk or kanji thanni or just plain water. The consistency of the batter should be thinner than our usual dosai batter. Let it rest for about 30 minutes to 1 hr. This does not require fermentation. You can soak rice over night, grind the batter in the morning for a breakfast.
3. Heat a pan, smear with oil, take a laddle full of batter and pour. The pan should not be very hot. Rotate the pan like you do for aappam. Cover with a lid and cook until you see dosa leaving the pan. This does not require oil. If you need, just sprinkle some on top and not on the corners. This is a nice soft dosa.
4. Between every dosa, remember to sprinkle water and wipe out to make it less hot. Also, like usual dosa, this should not be cooked on both the sides. Just spread them like aappam, cover and cook. While removing from the pan, either roll them or fold them into quarters. Else they will tear. Serve hot with coriander chutney and dosai milagai podi.
5. Another variation I did was (you cannot do this, if using butter milk), I added about 1 cup vella paagu, pinch of elakkai powder, ghee while cooking to the dosa batter and made a nice vella dosai as well 🙂