Watermelon rind pancakes, or kalingada polo

A delicious, summery pancake that tastes of watermelons and is made with watermelon rind– the white portion you’d normally throw out. Serve with some cooling and refreshing mint chutney.

Ingredients 

• 2 ½ cups chopped watermelon rind (the white portion not the green. Okay if you get some of the pink portion in)
• 1 cup rice
• ½ cup coconut milk use ¼ cup fresh grated coconut if available
• ¼ cup poha or flattened or beaten rice optional– leave this out if not available to you and replace with 2 more tbsp of rice in the recipe
• Salt to taste

Instructions

• Soak the rice and the poha, if using, for an hour. Drain out all the soaking water.
• Place in a blender with the other ingredients and process to a smooth but very slightly grainy paste. Add a couple of tablespoons of water, if needed, at a time to get the batter to the consistency you want. The batter should be fairly thin and runny if you want thin dosas. For thicker dosas, make it the consistency of regular pancake batter.
• Let the batter stand overnight or for 8 hours.
• Heat a griddle. Pour about ½ cup of the batter in the center. If your batter is quite thin, it will spread into a round on its own. If thick, help along with the ladle to create a round.
• Let the dosa cook until bubbles appear all over. Spray or pour a few drops of oil around the edges of the dosa to crisp up the edges and help it release from the pan.
• When the bottom is golden brown, flip over and cook for about 30 seconds more.
• Serve hot with mint or cilantro chutney.