Name: Neer Dosa | Neer Dosai - Vegan and Gluten Free Rice Crepes
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: Raw Rice (I used Sona Masoori rice - 1 1/2 cups); Grated coconut - 1/2 cup; Salt - as needed; Water; Oil - few drops per dosai

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Neer Dosa | Neer Dosai, means water dosai in Tulu language and is a simple crepe made with rice. My mother alwaya made something similar to this and called it the thengai dosai. I never realized that both the Thengai dosai / Coconut Dosai and Neer Dosai are similar until I went back to her recipe. This week I am doing famous breakfast dishes from different places and this is my first post under the theme.

I had made this Neer Dosai long time ago when amma was here and had taken pictures, but I never got around blogging. I seem to have lost the pictures as well and so here I am making it again.

We are a cereal eating family for breakfast and hence it was very hard for me even think of what are the dishes that people usually eat for breakfast. I wanted to stick to the Indian recipes as most of the times, I made them for dinner. So these are recipes that will work great for breakfast as well for dinner.

The Neer dosai is made just with rice and water along with salt. Amma adds coconut in her dosai and hence I added coconut gratings as well. If you want to skip the coconut, feel free to do so but I felt it added a lot of flavor to the dosai. This Neer Dosai is entirely gluten free and vegan as well. So if you are looking for a gluten free crepe option, this is a great choice.

I would highly recommend to use a good non stick pan or a well seasoned cast iron pan to make the Neer Dosai. It hardly needs any oil and the dosai comes out very easily. Make sure not to stack the dosai when warm as they tend to stick to each other. Keep them separated until they cool down a bit and then you can stack them.

Ingredients to make Neer Dosa | Neer Dosai – (makes 18)

Raw Rice (I used Sona Masoori rice) – 1 1/2 cups
Grated coconut – 1/2 cup
Salt – as needed
Water
Oil – few drops per dosai

Procedure to make Neer Dosa | Neer Dosai –

Wash and soak the rice for at least 4 hours. You could also soak it overnight if needed.
Drain the water and place the rice in a blender jar along with grated coconut and salt. Adding little water, grind the rice into a smooth batter. Do not add more water at this stage as the rice would not grind properly. Add just enough water at this stage.
Pour the batter in a bowl and use about a cup of water to wash the blender jar and add this to the batter.
Mix the batter well and add more water to make it a very thin batter, almost like buttermilk. If the batter is thick, the crepes will not cook properly and the texture will be different. So make sure you add enough water to make it into a very thin batter.

Heat a non stick pan or a cast iron pan. Add a few drops of oil and rub it with a paper towel to grease the pan.
Take a large ladle full of batter and pour it on the pan. Pour the batter in a circular pattern and scatter it around. Do not spread the batter with the ladle, just pour the batter and if needed tilt the pan to spread the batter around.
The crepes would be very porous and will have lot of holes and bubbles. Cover the pan and let the dosa cook. If needed, drizzle a little oil on the crepes.
Once the dosai is cooked, it will start peeling off the pan. Fold the dosai into half and then into half again and remove them on a plate.

Grease the pan again (if needed) and make the next crepe. Do not stack the crepes when hot as they will stick with each other. Serve warm with spicy chutney and/or sambhar. I served mine with coconut chutney and Onion tomato and cilantro chutney.