Recipe credit: Darshana Muzumdar
Serves 4 as part of a traditional Indian meal.
Polay is the Marathi or Konkani word for dosas or pancakes. Pola is the singular for polay.
Ingredients
- 2 coconuts grated (about 4 cups)
- 1 cup (adjust as per taste) jaggery to sweeten the coconut milk
- 3 cups coarse or non sticky rice (sona masuri or any pulav rice are good varieties for this recipe)
- coconut/groundnut oil for frying the polay
- rock salt to taste
Method
- Soak the rice in water for two hours.
- To make the coconut milk, grate the coconuts. Grind three fourth parts of the grated coconut with just enough water to allow it to move smoothly in the blender. Strain this through a damp muslin cloth or nut milk bag placed over a pot to get the coconut milk.
- Add the jaggery to the coconut milk and mix it. Keep it aside to allow all the jaggery to dissolve. Keep stirring it from time to time.
- Grind the remaining one-fourth part of the grated coconut and rice together to a very fine consistency. Add salt to taste and mix well. It should be a thin batter.
- Heat a pan and spread a few drops of oil on it evenly. Take a ladleful of batter and spread it evenly into a very thin circle.
- Let it cook till the sides start coming off. The pola doesn’t need to be turned over, but you may if you wish to. The pola may not turn a golden brown like other dosas.
- Fold the pola twice into quarters and soak it in the sweetened coconut milk.
- Repeat for the remaining batter adding each pola to the sweetened coconut milk.
- Serve the polay when they come to room temperature.
For the Whole-Food Plant-Based (WFPB) version:
- Add a little more coconut in the batter while grinding so there won’t be any need for oil. Also, try using brown rice instead of white rice.
- Do not strain the ground coconut and add date or raisin paste instead of jaggery.