Panpolo / Neer Dosa

Panpolo or Neer dosa is a very common breakfast dosa in a konkaNi household. Neer - meaning water in kannada - is a main constituent of this dosa along with soaked rice. The consistency of this dosa is also watery, which is why the name probably. In konkaNi, I think it associates with Paani (water) polo (dosa). However, this is just a guess :) There are several versions of this dosa, with coconut, cucumber, magge (mangalore cucumber / melon), water melon peel etc., I love all these versions, but they all have distinct flavors and I think they are all acquired tastes.

I remember when my mom used to make these dosas (although she makes the coconut version of these called soye polo), they used to turn out so soft that every bite would melt in your mouth. We used to eat them with ChurNu (konkaNi), which is a mixture of grated coconut and jaggery, or with honey. I never preferred to eat this dish with chutney, although, if I insist on honey or churNu nowadays, my mom will probably call me a baby :P Not that I care... I stick to my tastes often !!

Oh BTW !! These dosas are similar to crepes. Anyways, heres the recipe you guys.... You will love this dish and it is so simple to make.

Serves 2 Preparation Time (3.5 hrs - on and off)
Set-Aside Time (4 hrs / overnight)
Cooking Time - 20 mins approx


Ingredients

Rice - 1 cups

Salt - as per taste

Water

Oil - for roasting

Method

Soak the rice for 2 - 3 hrs. Hence the large preparation time :)

Grind the rice with as less water as possible to a fine smooth paste. Pour it into a vessel and add considerable quantity of water... Don't worry yet about the consistency of the batter. Don't yet add the salt at this point. 

Keep the watery batter overnight or at-least for 4 more hours. The batter will now separate out from the water and the water can be seen floating on top of the batter in the vessel. Don't shake the vessel a lot and pour out the water from the top of the vessel, by tilting the vessel slowly. Don't worry if a little bit of water is left behind. This process is to get a little bit of elasticity to the batter when kept aside for some time. If this process is omitted, the dosas might break when spread on the tava, since rice does not have an inherent elasticity.

Now add some salt to the batter. Add water enough to make the batter to the consistency of milk. Not too thick, but not very watery either.

Heat a tava on medium flame. Sprinkle a few drops of oil on it. Throw some of the batter with a ladle. If the tava is a round one with an edge or rim, you can just pour some batter on the tava and tilt the tava to spread the batter. Do not spread the batter with the ladle like a normal dosa. Cover and cook for a min or two. Fold the dosa and serve. This dosa is not flipped and cooked like regular dosas. Enjoy with any kind of chutney or ChurNu or honey. It tastes heavenly.

I had prepared peanut-garlic chutney to go with it.
YES !! I realize the tea-cup is almost empty,
but that is when my friends let me finally take this pic :)

Rava Bhakri / Rullava Bhakri

"Bhakri" in konkani means a hybrid of a dosa and rotti (rotti in kannada - not roti in hindi). So, its a kind of a thick pancake type dish which is a bit crunchier and has a bite compared to a soft pancake. Bhakri can be made out of rice flour, wheat rava, idli rava etc.,


When my mom used to make these bhakris at home, I used to gobble so many of them - I used to love them with butter / ghee. Also, my mom used to make small-tiny disc shaped ones. She would cook 3 small bhakris on the tava at the same time. So, each one was 2-3 bite-sized servings and they used to disappear so fast.... :)


This rava bhakri batter can also be combined with grated cucumber, melon or the like to get variations of the dish and they all taste heavenly. Also, they all leave such a wonderful aroma in the house when they are cooking, that, that alone is enough to get your appetite going.... Well, enough description and lets get down to the recipe now... I am feeling hungry for them all over again :(


Serves 2
Preparation Time (10 min)
Cooking Time - 15 mins approx

Ingredients


Sooji / Rava - 2 cups

Grated coconut - 1 cup (the more the coconut, the better the taste)
Green Chillies - 2 (finely chopped)

Yoghurt - for making a mixture
Salt - as per taste

Coriander leaves (optional - finely chopped)

Oil - for roasting

Method

Add the grated coconut, finely chopped green chillies, salt into a deep bowl and mix well. Keep aside. When you are ready to make the bhakris / rottis, add the rava and add as much yoghurt is necessary to make a batter thicker than idli batter. (You should be able to take a ladel of batter and when you drop it, it should fall down in a lump and not run down the ladel.) If you dont want to use a lot of yoghurt, you can add some water to make the batter. If you want to spread the batter like a dosa, then make it a little more thinner than usual. Traditionally the batter is spread using your hands, but that could get you a bit on the burnt hands end :P

Heat a pan / griddle (preferably cast iron), on medium flame. Once it is hot, spread a few drops of oil on the griddle. Take a large ladel full of batter, put it on the pan and start spreading with your hands. If it gets too hot, then dip your hands in cold water and spread the rest of it. The batter should be spread to about 1/4 " thickness.

Cover and cook for 2 mins or until bottom side is golden brown. Then sprinkle few drops of oil on top of the bhakri. Flip it and cook until the top side has golden brown spots as well. Rava bhakri is ready to serve with chutney and butter / ghee. Enjoy !!

P.S: Sorry I do not have photos as of now, but will add as soon as I have some.

Cabbage Upkari

Serves 2
Preparation Time (10 min)
Cooking Time - 15 mins approx

Ingredients
 

1/2 Cabbage (medium sized - chopped)
Grated coconut - 1 tbsp
Green Chillies - 2 - slit lengthwise
Salt - as per taste

For Tempering

Oil - 1 tbsp 

Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp
Urad Dal - 1 tsp

Method 

Wash the chopped cabbage thoroughly.


Heat a wide pan on medium flame. Add the oil. When the oil is a bit hot, add the mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds start spluttering, add the urad dal into it. When the urad dal starts turning brown, add the green chillies into it. Fry for 1 min. (You can also add chopped onions and fry for another 3 mins - but I prefer it without the onions)

Add the chopped cabbage into it. Add salt and mix well. Cover with a lid and let it cook for 10 mins. Lift the lid and stir. Cook until the cabbage is tender-cooked (it turns almost translucent - that could be one indication). Add grated coconut to the dish and mix well. Remove from flame. Cabbage curry is ready to serve. Enjoy !!


P.S: There is no coconut added in this picture.

Cabbage Curry - Ready to Serve :)

Cooking once again !! :P

Grr... Have any of you hated Firefox sometimes ?? I just wrote this post twice already and both the times, it did not save my post :( Now I have to write it for the 3rd time, fortunately, its working in Chrome... So, lemme collect all my feelings again and.... here it is now....

For the past few days now, I have been cooking quite a bit... Why dint I cook all these days, you say ?? Well, lets see.....mmmm.....errrr.....ahem..... baah, what would you do with a few trivial details ?? The main thing is that I am back to cooking and thats what matters to me....and its a wonderful feeling....

Cooking gives me a sense of accomplishment, the feeling of creating something new everyday, the feeling of getting things right (when the dish turns out "yummmmy"). Somehow, after an hour of cooking, I feel relaxed and elated at the same time, all worries forgotten..... Believe me, it works, you should try it someday.

Anyways, down to the point, I cooked these dishes in the past couple of days and want to post the recipes maybe 1 each day, so that I have something to write about everyday. So, here they are....(linked ones point to recipes)

• Cabbage Upkari
• Vegetable Sambar
• Paneer in poppyseed-tomato gravy
• Cabbage-Onion Pakodas
• Baingan Bharta

Remember I once said, if you try something new everyday, you can probably go for a year without repeating the same dish, and I plan to start that event sometime soon... Any suggestions for names are welcome....

So long

- So.

Peas Pulao

Serves 2
Preparation Time (10 min)
Cooking Time - 20 mins approx

Ingredients

Fresh / Frozen green peas - 2 cups
Rice (preferably basmati) - 2 cups
Water - 3 cups (1.5 times of rice)
Salt - to taste

For Tempering

Ghee / Oil - 2 tbsp
2 clove buds (lavang)
1/4 inch stick of cinnamon
1 bay leaf
1 medium onion - finely chopped (optional)


Method

Wash the rice thoroughly and keep it aside.

Wash the peas and keep them aside.

You can use 2 methods to cook peas pulao. I prefer method 1 mainly because it mixes the flavor of spices with the rice well and its less time consuming. Method 2 is easier / simpler to follow and you cannot go wrong with it. So its up-to personal preferences which method to use.

Method 1

Take a wide bottomed pan cooker and add the ghee / oil (Ghee gives more flavor). Start on a medium flame. When the ghee is hot, add the spices into the ghee and roast for 5 secs. If you are adding onions, add them at this point. Cook onions thoroughly until they turn transparent. If you brown the onions, then the pulao will get a brownish color. So if you want the pulao to stay whitish, then don't overcook the onions.

Add peas and fry them for 10 secs. Add salt. Add the washed basmati rice and mix well until the rice is coated well with the ghee and spices. When rice starts giving out the nice smell of basmati, then its time to add the water. Mix the water and rice well. Taste the water. It has to be a bit more saltier than your general taste, because the extra salt gets absorbed by the peas and rice.

Cover the pressure cooker and cook until you get 2 whistles. Switch off and leave on the stove until it cools down. Open the cooker lid slowly and mix the dish well. Peas pulao is ready to serve.

Method 2

Cook the washed rice with water in a pressure cooker. Remove the rice and mix with a spoon to release the steam and keep aside. Place a wide bottomed pan on medium flame and add the ghee into it. Add the spices and other ingredients as in method 1. However, cook the peas for a longer time, until they are cooked, but are still slightly crunchy. Don't overcook the peas. Add the salt and mix well.

Once the peas are cooked, mix the cooked rice into it. Reduce the flame to low. Mix the cooked rice with the mixture slowly. Take care not to break the rice. Cover and cook for 2 mins on low flame and then turn off. Peas pulao is ready to serve.

P.S : You can also add cashews to the tempering if you are fond of nuts. I served it here with Masala Boiled Eggs on the side.

Peas Pulao and Masala boiled eggs

Tostones

Serves 2
Preparation Time (1 min) 
Cooking Time - 15 mins

Ingredients

Raw green plantain - 1
Coriander leaves - few sprigs (finely chopped)
Salt - to taste 
Chat Masala and / or Amchur powder - 1 tsp each (optional - use if you want to Indianize it)
Oil - for deep fry

Method 

Heat up some oil in a frying pan (the wider the better) on a medium flame, so that by the time the preparation is over, the oil is hot enough to start cooking. This way you wont waste much time. (Remember not to start on a high flame)

Wash the plantain thoroughly and peel it (not with a peeler - peel it like you would peel a banana - tips below*).
Cut the plantain into 3/4 inch thick slices. Keep aside until oil is hot.

Once the oil is hot, add the slices one by one into the oil - they should come up in the oil immediately. Turn them over in less than 30 secs. They should not fry much, just until they change color. Remove them onto a paper towel. Reduce the oil to a low flame.

No No its not yet done... Just a few mins more :)

The slices of plantain have a lot of oil absorbed now. Take a glass or a kitchen utensil with a round flat bottom surface. This will be used to flatten out the plantain slices to remove extra oil from them. Take each slice of plantain and using the glass / utensil, flatten out the slice with some pressure (not too much) so that the slice is now just more than 1/4 of an inch thick. Pat the slice dry using a paper towel to remove all the excess oil and keep aside. Do the same with all the other slices.

Meanwhile increase the oil flame again to medium and once it is hot, add the flattened slices of plantain into the pan. Fry them until they are golden brown in color on either sides. This time, the slices don't absorb too much oil. Drain them on a paper towel if you are very health conscious.

Arrange the slices on a serving plate and sprinkle some salt and coriander leaves over them for garnish. Tostones are ready to serve :) ENJOY YOUR MEAL !!

P. S:
I think the picture is from when I made tostones out of two plantains. So don't compare the quantity :)

Prepared Tostones - ready to be served :)

 

Close-up View !!

Tips

Its a little difficult to peel the raw plantains, hence some tips.

Cut the plantain into two. Slit the peel lengthwise in 4 directions (dont cut the plantain lengthwise - take care to only slit the peel). The peel then comes out easily when you try to peel it like a normal banana :) Don't try to peel a plantain without slitting. You might hurt your fingers / nails. The peel is generally too hard.

You can even peel it using a peeler, but you would have to peel out several layers until you reach the actual fruit, which I think is time consuming as well as results in the wastage of some part of the fruit too. I would recommend the previous method.

All work and No Cooking makes......

Well, well, well... what do we have here ? A dull girl ? Maybe !!

I know, I haven't updated my blog in a long time now. So here's something to go by.... I will post one recipe everyday until my store of recipes is over. Haven't been cooking much lately, so there are no pics / new recipes... just old ones. So here goes... check out my next post for a new recipe :D