Balloon Vine Leaves Dosa / Mudakathan Keerai Dosai

Having a farm at native is an advantage of trying many traditional dishes that are less known by everyone. Couple of months ago, when I visited our farm at my native, found these balloon vine leaves and recollected the childhood memories associated with it. We used to pluck its balloon shaped seeds and play with it. Since I do not get those leaves in Chennai, I asked my dad to get a good bunch of it to prepare some traditional recipe and this dosa is the first entry.

Mudakathan keerai is mainly used for curing the knee and join pain. In our native, many used to get this plant from our farm for the treatment of joint pain. Kids can also like this dosa and the green colour simply attract them. They can not find the healthy secret ingredient which gives the green colour in this dosa. Those who have not seen this creeper, please click here. A collection of photos of this creeper is given.

Basic Information:

Soaking Time: 2 hours

Preparation Time: 20-25 minutes

Fermentation Time: 6-8 hours

Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Serves: 8

Ingredients:

Idly Rice / Par boiled rice – 1 and 1/2 cups

Raw rice / Pacharisi – 1 and 1/2 cups

Urad dal – 1/2 cup, heaped

Mudakathan Keerai / Balloon Vine Leaves – 2 cups, roughly chopped

Salt – to taste

Method:

1) Wash both the rices and urad dal well and soak it for at least 2 hours.

2) Clean the mudakathan keerai. Pluck the leaves from stem and chop roughly. Keep it aside.

3) After 2 hours, grind the rice and urad dal together. Make a smooth batter. Add enough water to help grinding.

4) Towards the end of grinding the batter, make a puree of the mudakathan leaves using an Indian mixee  by adding few tablespoons of water.

5) Add this puree to the batter and continue grinding for few seconds or until the puree incorporated well with batter.

6) Transfer the batter to the large bowl which has enough space for fermenting. Add salt and mix well. Allow it to ferment for minimum 6 hours. Fermentation time differs based on the place you keep the batter.

7) After the batter fermented well, slightly beat it using a ladle and add water if required. (To make easily pouring dosa batter consistency)

8) Heat tawa/ skillet. When it is hot, pour a ladle full of batter to the center of the pan. Spread it quickly towards the end of the pan in a circle motion.

9) Drizzle a half a teaspoon of oil. Allow it to cook for few seconds.

10) When the dosa cooked and the colour of it turns slightly darker, turn to other side and allow the other side to cook.

11) When both the sides are cooked, transfer to a plate.

12) Serve hot with any of your favourite chutney. But, it goes well with Tomato kara chutney, tomato onion chutney.

Notes:

1) For the instant version of the mudakathan keerai dosai, simply make a puree of mudakathan leaves and mix it to the dosa batter.

2) Add green chilli, cumin seeds to the mudakathan keerai while grinding it to make puree for the spicier version of this dosa.

3) If you have left over batter, keep refrigerated and use it within 1 or 2 days.