Post kids, our cooking changes a lot and whatever we make has to be “kid friendly” and “kid approved”. So all of my blog posts will be dishes which my kids love.
Dosa love is in their genes and we as a family love dosas almost everyday for breakfast. So weekly there would be a sweet dosa called Surnali and Panpoles or neeru dose and this cotton dosa which I am sharing now.
These dosas got famous and everyone started trying them as they looked so beautiful and soft just like cotton. When I read as to who tried it first, it was Ashwini Kamath who by chance got this proportion for cotton dosa when she had very less urad dal one day. But when she made the dosas, it turned out very soft. So she shared her “eureka” recipe with everyone. Thank you Ashwini. This recipe is amazing.
RECIPE:
Ingredients:
3 Cups Dosa rice
1 Cup thick Poha/ flattened rice/rice flakes
1/4 Cup Urad dal
Salt to taste
Step by step recipe:
1. Wash well and soak rice and urad dal together for 3 to 4 hours.
2. Wash once and soak thick Poha separately for 3 to 4 hours too.
3. Drain water from the soaked rice and urad dal and grind along with Poha and salt to a smooth paste. Allow the batter to ferment overnight or for atleast 8 hours.
The well fermented batter always makes me happy!
4. Heat a dosa griddle and add a ladle full of dosa batter in the centre of the pan. Keep the flame on medium hot.
5. Cover and cook till the surface cooks. Add ghee or oil if needed.
6. Remove the dosa and serve hot with a chutney of your choice. No need to flip the dosa.
Note:
* If the weather in your place is cold, then keep the batter for fermentation for atleast 12 hours. Else the dosas won’t turn out as soft and porous.
If any doubts, do message me on my Facebook page Healthy cooking with mithaor on my Instagram handle and I would be happy to help. Happy cooking!
When I was a kid, my mother used to say ” If I make plain rice and curry, you say you don’t like rice but if I make chitranna or pulao, rice becomes your favourite!”. The same is with my kids now. They love variety rice more than plain one and this lemon rice is their favourite.
My 5 year old loves her lemon rice with lemon pickle (yes , a sour lover she is) while my 1.5 year old loves lemon rice with curd.
Since we have plenty of mint growing in our backyard, I add them too for some extra flavour and health benefit.
RECIPE:
Ingredients:
4 Cups cooked white rice (leftover rice will also do)
10 to 12 mint leaves/ pudina
3 green chillies
1/2 tsp Turmeric powder/ Haldi
Juice of a half a lemon/ one full lemon of using Indian variety
Salt to taste
For seasoning:
1 Tbsp Coconut oil
1 tsp Mustard seeds
1 tsp Cumin seeds/ Jeera
1 tsp Urad dal
1 Tbsp Peanuts
A pinch of Hing/ Asafoetida
A sprig of curry leaves
Step by step recipe:
1. Heat coconut oil in a pan and add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, urad dal, peanuts and hing.
2. When mustard seeds splutter, add curry leaves and green chillies. Fry for few seconds.
3. Now add mint leaves along with turmeric powder and fry for few more seconds.
4. Now add the cooked rice along with salt to the pan and mix thoroughly. If adding freshly made rice, allow the rice to cool down completely before you add to the pan else the rice will not hold shape and will mash down.
5. Finally add lemon juice after switching off the flame and mix well.
Notes:
* You can skip mint leaves if not available and make normal lemon chitranna.
* A garnish with freshly grated coconut can also be added for a wonderful flavour.
* If you don’t have leftover rice and don’t have the time to make rice, allow it to cool and mix, you can cook the rice in the seasoning itself like how you cook pulao. I do that during rush days and it turns out great too. Instead of cooked rice, add raw rice and enough water. Cook rice till done. Add lemon juice at the end.
If any doubts, do message me on my Facebook page Healthy cooking with mithaor on my Instagram handle and I would be happy to help. Happy cooking!
Panpolos in Konkani or Neeru dose in Kannada are one of the yummiest variety of dosas. Though eating it is very easy due to its soft and melt in the mouth texture, making it perfectly is not at all easy. Atleast for me, it took many years to get this dosa right.
My mom made the best panpolos ever and I cannot match her taste. When I was pregnant with my daughter, she used to stand with her walker leaning against the kitchen slab and make almost 20 panpolos for me ( even more sometimes). It was my topmost pregnancy craving and my dad was fed up eating panpolos every other day for breakfast.
Then when my daughter was an year old, Amma came here to Qatar and taught me how to make perfect panpolos. She stood beside me and showed me the batter consistency and how I should pour it. After that, I too learned the art of making panpolos and now I can say I make them perfectly.
Panpolos taste the best with Amma’s Tomato chutney and I love the combination very much.
Amma can no longer walk using her walker and uses wheel chair for movement. She is sad that she cannot cook like before. But Amma, whatever you have taught me, it will always remain with me and will be passed on to the next generation.
Here’s sharing the recipe. The main ingredient always will be Love. Make them with love and they will come out right. Happy and healthy cooking!
RECIPE:
Ingredients:
2 1/2 Cups Raw white rice (any variety of white rice works)
1 Cup grated Coconut (fresh/ desiccated)
Salt to taste
Step by step recipe:
1. Wash well and soak the rice for 4 hours.
2. Drain and add the soaked rice along with coconut and salt to a mixer.
3. Grind with water as required (do not add a lot of water) to a smooth paste.
4. Remove in a vessel and add more water to make a thin batter. The batter should be thinner than regular dosa batter and should be free flowing. (Be careful while adding water though. Prepare a dosa and check if it is coming out well. Excess water in the batter makes dosas sticky.)
5. The first dosa shows whether your batter texture is perfect or not. If the dosa comes out thick and less holes, you need to add more water to the batter.
6. Heat a flat bottomed dosa pan and when it becomes hot, pour the dosa batter. Just add one or two ladles of the batter on the hot pan in one single layer. This dosa does not have the round shape of regular dosas.
7. Cover and cook for couple of minutes till the surface cooks well.
8. Fold the dosa as shown into half.
9. Fold again resembling a triangle.
10. Remove and serve hot with a chutney of your choice. I have served with my Amma’s Tomato Chutney.
Notes:
* The main point while making these dosas is the batter consistency. It takes some trials to get the perfect texture. If the batter is too thick, the dosas don’t come out as soft. You will know that when you pour the dosa. Check the difference here.
When the dosa batter is too thick. No holes and thick dosa. Needs more water to make batter thin. Perfect dosas. Holes in the dosa and thin, soft dosa.
* You can also add coconut water while grinding for a delicious flavor to the dosa.
* This dosa can be had with honey, grated coconut with powdered jaggery, tomato chutney or any chutney of your choice.
* Leftover batter can be refrigerated and used later. I sometimes grind at night and refrigerate for breakfast next day.
* Make sure to grind the batter smoothly and not coarse. Coarse batter makes hard dosas.
*The dosa batter should NOT be fermented like regular dosas. The batter is ready to use as soon as ground.
*This dosa cooks only on one side. Do NOT flip and cook the dosa.
All these tips were taught to me by my mother, Rekha Shenoy and I am ever grateful to her for that. If I know to make perfect panpolos, it’s because of her. 🙏
If any doubts, do message me on my Facebook page Healthy cooking with mitha or on my Instagram handle and I would be happy to help. Happy cooking!
Edited to add: Have got many doubts with Panpolo making after I posted this recipe . One of them is-
Q: My panpolos stick to the pan each time I make it and the dosas turn sticky. What is the reason?
My answer:
Oh that’s so sad. There can be many reasons for that. I have faced it as well. The first reason is that the batter is more watery than it should be. To solve this, grind the batter smoothly and add less water while doing so. Make the first dosa. It will turn thick but it will not stick to the pan. Then add little by little water to the batter if required. Second reason is never ferment panpolo batter. Even if it stays in room temperature for few hours, it tends to get sticky. Always use it as soon as you grind the batter or refrigerate till use. Third reason is the pan is not hot enough. For panpolos, the pan should be very hot. Only then pour the batter. Hope you get your panpolos right this time.
Surnalis are sweet, spongy dosas made on Tulsi Pooja day in our GSB community. But since my family loves this dosa, I make it regularly.
My daughter is specially a fan of this dosa and she loves sitting beside me while I make these delicious, aromatic dosas. I don’t blame her as I too used to wait for my mother to make these dosas for our breakfast. These dosas don’t need any accompaniment and can be had as it is.
We, the GSB’s (Gowda Saraswat Brahmin) are famous for our variety of dosas and this is one of the most famous and loved one. You can call this the king of dosas made by konkanis. There are many other yummy dosas which I will be sharing one by one. My family loves dosas and over the years, it has made me a variety dosa specialist. Maybe some day I will open my own dosa corner, haha.
Anyhow, here is the recipe for delicious Surnalis. This was how my mom made them with the exception of adding curd. I add it to get the dosa more spongier. Hope you and your family enjoy them as much as we do. Happy Tulsi Pooja.
RECIPE:
Ingredients:
2 Cups Raw Rice (Any variety of white rice)
1 Cup grated coconut ( fresh/ desiccated)
1 Cup Beaten rice/ Poha
1/2 Cup Curd
3/4 Cup Jaggery
1 tsp Turmeric powder
1 tsp Fenugreek seeds/ Methi
Salt to taste
Ghee to cook the dosa
Recipe:
1. Wash well and soak the raw rice with fenugreek seeds for 2 to 4 hours.
2. Wash beaten rice/ Poha well in water. Keep aside.
3. Melt jaggery in very little water (about 1/4 Cup). Keep aside to cool.
4. Now grind soaked rice – Fenugreek seeds along with Poha, jaggery, coconut, curd, turmeric and salt to a smooth paste. Add buttermilk instead of water while grinding for spongier surnalis. Don’t add too much water while grinding. It should be a thick batter.
5. Mix well with hands to start fermentation. Keep aside covered for 8 hours or overnight in a warm place of your house. In winters, it takes up to 12 hours for the batter to ferment well.
6. Take a ladle full of the batter and pour a thick dosa. Do not spread like regular dosas. Add ghee on top.
7. Cover and cook on low flame till the dosa cooks. (This dosa requires low flame to cook. Else it will turn black due to jaggery in it.)
8. Remove and serve hot with butter.
Notes:
* Any variety of white rice ranging from Sona masoori to short grain white rice (used for eating) works well to make this dosa.
* You could substitute curd with buttermilk.
* Ensure the batter is a slightly thick ( not very thick) smooth paste and not watery to get perfect surnalis.
* The amount of jaggery is to taste. You could increase or decrease as per your taste.
* Cook the Surnalis on medium to low flame. Else it will turn black underneath if cooked on high flame due to jaggery and poha in the batter.
* Surnalis come out the best when the batter is freshly fermented. Once refrigerated, the dosas does not come as spongy. Still they come out like regular dosas.
* Although it tastes amazing with butter, I make Sambarpalli leaves chutney with it and it tastes super delicious. Here is the recipe for the Sambarpalli leaves chutney .
Healthy cooking with Mitha 