Neer Dosa South Indian Cooking

The batter for these dosas flows like a swooshing river of pouring cream. Splash it in a hot pan, rotating until it becomes as thin as a crepe — and then watch the surface transform into a corded lace-like dosa. Serve Neer Dosa with your favourite saagu, sambhar or simply enjoy with chutney. My favourite dish to serve with these is a creamy coconut milk-based Vegetable Kurma.

What are Neer Dosa?

Recipes for Neer Dosa vary from cook to cook, but the core ingredients are soaked rice, water and salt. Fresh coconut is abundant in South India and is commonly added for flavour. I add coconut flavour to this dosa in the form of coconut milk. Vegetable Kurma is a curry I like to serve alongside Neer Dosa, so a splash of coconut milk from the same tin does the job perfectly for me. Neer Dosa are a favourite in Tulu vegetarian cuisine is a treasured part of Mangalorean cuisine. It’s also known as Udupi cuisine which is rooted in Satvik traditions.

Is it easy to make Neer Dosa?

Being a non-fermented variety of dosa, it is relatively quick to prepare in comparison to other types of dosa.

What type of rice is best for making Neer Dosa?

Again, every cook has their own preference of what rice to use. I am UK based, so have experimented with the most commonly available types of rice here. Typically, a medium-short grain rice like Sona Masuri is popular for making Neer Dosa. It is grown largely in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and is known for its great fragrance and starchy qualities. However, it’s not a variety I can get my hands on easily where I live. Cue the Neer Dosa rice experiments.

What if I don’t have special rice?

After nine separate experiments using various varieties of rice, I found that both Idli rice and Thai Jasmine rice did a wonderful job in place of Sona Masuri. Having said this, I had good results using a standard American-style short-grain rice, too. Even 100% Basmati rice (250g) produced a good result for me (when I reduced the water content in my recipe by 50ml).