Watermelon Dosa / Kalingana Saali Polo

Watermelon Dosa / Kalingana Saali Polo is a dosa made using watermelon rind (The white part, which is in between the red part and the outer green skin). It is a traditional dosa recipe from the Konkani cuisine of Karnataka. In Konkani language, Kalingan means Watermelon, Saali means peel and Polo means Dosa. 

I had already posted Watermelon juice recipe earlier. Watermelon is everyone’s favourite summer fruit. As it is made up of 90 percent water, it provides guaranteed refreshment during the hot summer days. Frankly speaking, I always use to eat only the red part of it and discard the white part of it known as rind. Lately, my mother told me about the various utilities of the watermelon rind in cooking recipes. Then I researched more on it to know its health benefits and found out many. I realised that I can make a taste out of what I thought was waste as I believe one should make use of all parts of any edible produce (Fruits / Vegetables, etc.). 

So now let me tell you how exactly I used this rind in cooking a recipe.

I used the rind to make Watermelon dosa.

This dosa has a very soft and spongy texture.  Once prepared, I really loved eating it. You won’t even come to know that it has watermelon rind added to it.

So, this is an excellent way of utilising the watermelon rind instead of throwing it away. Watermelon dosas are usually made at home when there's an excess of watermelon that you need to empty or there are not-so-sweet watermelons that need to be emptied.

Some benefits of Watermelon rind that may make you think twice before discarding it.

It has got a healthy amount of Vitamin A and C, Potassium, Magnesium and other important nutrients.

The amino acid citrulline, which is concentrated in the rind has libido boosting powers that helps men with mild to moderate erectile dysfunction.

Cirtulline also improves your athletic performance.

Watermelon has diuretic properties, which is often prescribed to people with high blood pressure. This helps in reducing the blood pressure by increasing the passage of urine (with water and sodium) and thereby reducing fluid in the blood vessels that cause high pressure. A diuretic is anything — food, drink, or medicine — that increases the flow of urine. 

Watermelon is a great source of lycopene, an antioxidant that could help to prevent prostrate cancer.

Lets learn how to make this unique dosa. 

Many recipe writers have used different set of ingredients for preparing watermelon dosa like some have used coconut, some have not. Some have used urad dal, some have not and so on. Therefore there are different variants of watermelon dosa depending on ingredients used. My list of ingredients is as follows.

INGREDIENTS :

(1) 250 gms of Rice

(2) 65 gms of Urad dal (Split Skinless Black gram)

(3) 2 pinch of Fenugreek seeds / Methi dana

(4) 2 cups of chopped Watermelon rind

(5) 1 cup of Poha / Pressed rice

(6) 1 cup of  Phula hua dhan / Puffed paddy (Optional)

(7) Salt to taste

Cusine : Konkani, South Indian, Karnataka

Serves : 4 persons

Time : 1 hour

Here are the pictures of the ingredients used.

Rice

Urad dal

Fenugreek seeds / Methi dana

Poha / Pressed Rice

 

Phula hua dhan / Puffed Paddy

Watermelon rind pieces

PREPARATION :

(1) Take 250 gms of Rice, 65 gms of Urad dal and 2 pinch of Fenugreek seeds / Methi dana in a bowl.

(2) Take on a plate the rind pieces of Watermelon.

(3) Take 1 cup of Poha / Pressed rice and 1 cup of  Phula hua dhan / Puffed paddy (Optional) together in a bowl. Here the cup is 100 gms sized measurement cup.

(4) Keep some salt ready in a small bowl.

(5) Here is the picture of all the ingredients taken together.

(6) Chop the Watermelon rind into small pieces as shown.

Chopped Watermelon Rind

(7) Wash the rice, urad dal and methi dana taken in a bowl under running tap water and drain all the water and keep aside.

(8) Usually we soak the rice and urad dal in water in other types of dosas, but here we are doing something different. 

In a bowl, we take together the washed rice, urad dal and methi dana along with the chopped Watermelon rind. Mix them well.

And keep aside for 2 -3 hours. The washed rice and urad dal will get soaked by the moisture from the watermelon rind. 

We are doing this way because Watermelon rind itself have much water content and if we soak rice and urad dal in water and then grind with Watermelon rind pieces, then the batter will become too thin. But if we do as I said, then we will get a thick batter.

Once all the ingredients are taken together, let's prepare the batter.

PREPARING BATTER :

(9) In the grinding jar, take soaked rice, urad dal, methi dana and watermelon rind. Grind them together into a smooth batter without adding any water as the water given by watermelon is sufficient to make a batter. If needed add very little water (Like half glass or little less) only as much as required to make a medium thick batter.

(10) Transfer the ground batter into a large utensil, add salt to it and mix it well.

Watermelon dosa batter

Here is the video showing the batter consistency.

FERMENT THE BATTER OVERNIGHT :

(11) Allow the batter to ferment overnight for a minimum of 6-7 hours. The more the batter ferments, the better, softer and fluffier dosas you can make.

If the weather is cold, you will need longer resting time for enough fermentation.

(12) After fermentation, the batter rises, give the batter a good mix and now you are ready to make dosas.

Here is the picture of the fermented batter.

Fermented Watermelon Dosa batter

FRYING THE WATERMELON DOSA :

(13) Heat up a frying pan on a medium flame on the gas stove.

Brush it with few drops of oil.

(14) Pour a ladleful of batter in the center of the pan and slightly press in the center to spread the batter on the pan. You will find tiny holes getting formed on the surface of the dosa.

Cover the lid and cook one side for a minute or two. 

Then open the lid and put few drops of oil over the dosa.

Flip the dosa and cook again for a minute or till the dosa is golden brown in colour on both sides.

You can make the dosas thick or thin, but I like it medium thick as this way it becomes super fluffy and soft.

(15) Remove the dosa from the pan and take it on a serving plate.

(16) You can serve the Watermelon dosa with butter on top along with Sambar, any Vegetable curry and Coriander Mint Chutney or with Coriander Coconut Chutney.

(17) Here is the video showing the procedure of frying Watermelon dosa on a pan.

One can also prepare sweet version of Watermelon dosas by adding jaggery to its batter.

Preparing sweet watermelon dosas:

1. Add grated or powdered jaggery to the dosa batter while grinding the batter and mix well.

2. Add jaggery according to your palate, how sweet you would like them to be.

3. Jaggery dilutes the batter. So, if you plan to add jaggery to the batter then do not add water while grinding. 

4. Make dosas as mentioned above.

Serving sweet watermelon dosas:

5. Serve hot watermelon dosas with ghee or butter on top. You can also serve it with sugar on top. Or you can also serve sweet dosas with a spicy coconut chutney.