Saturday, June 9, 2012

Ridge Gourd Dosa/ Heerekai Chatti

This dosa is common in South Canara homes and is usually made as a side dish for rice-rasam, but I make only the dosas as we find the rice-rasam-dosa combination too heavy. The batter needs no fermenting yaay! and you need no grinder yaay yaay!! and you can make it with ridge gourd or plantain or cabbage or any type of greens yaay yaay yaay!!!

Heerekai Chatti:
- Soak 1C raw rice, 2Tbsp channa dal and 10-15 dry red chillies for 2-3 hours.
- Drain the rice, dal and dry red chillies and grind to a paste along with 1Tbsp coriander seeds, 1tsp cumin seeds, 1/4C grated coconut, salt, 2-3Tbsp tamarind paste and 1Tbsp jaggery.Taste the batter, the spice, tang and sweet all should be on the higher side otherwise the dosa will taste bland. The consistency should be that of thick buttermilk, like so-

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- Peel (save the peels for make chutney) and thinly slice 1 ridge gourd (get tender ones, the gigantic ones taste awful and sometimes bitter).

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- Heat pan with little oil. Put a handful of the cut gourd into the batter, dip the slices in the batter and place them on the hot pan. Continue to do so until you cover the entire surface of the pan. You need to do this quickly otherwise the ridge gourd at the centre will get burnt while the ones on the outside will be still be raw. Also, since the batter is a thin consistency keep it near the pan that way you just dip and drop the gourd slices on the pan. If you keep the batter a mile away from the pan, the batter would have dripped away from the gourd by the time it hits the pan.

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- Drizzle little oil and cover. Flip the dosa drizzle little oil and let it cook.
- Remove and serve.

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It needs no podi, chutney or sambhar tastes fantastic on its own (make sure the batter is sweet-sour-spicy) but even better with butter. 

6 comments:

  1. This is awesome. Absolutely my kinda meal. Veggies, some batter and packed with flavors.
    BTW, I was thinking if I can slice strips of the guard and lay them on the griddle after dipping them in the batter, may be 5-6 strips would be enough for a square dosa. Would it be different in taste? It'll be definitely saving time..isn't it?

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    1. Yo would be the 1st one to it that way! You can go ahead and try it, but you might have to make the batter a little thick. Thin batter might not coat the long slices well. Also the edge of the gourd is slightly thick so it will be a hassle to eat them if the slices are long-ok don't know if I am making any sense here. You make a round one and a square one you will see what I mean.

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  2. This looks so awesome and I love the flavors! I am going to make this soon and eat it with a whole lot of benne.

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    1. Ooo benne thats how its eaten in my place. Akki rotis and rava rotti also with benne yum.

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  3. i feel like i have seen something similar on some blog but wow! this is such an ingenious idea! the only this is, it's impossible to get tender rodge gourd here

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  4. My ajji used to make this and also with raw banana. I had almost forgotten how good it tastes! thanks SJ for the delicious reminder :) I am soooooooooo gonna make this and have it with big dollop of butter and sugar (that's how we used to eat it:)

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