Summers and watermelon go hand in hand. Watermelon is a favourite of most of us here and is considered to be one of the best thirst-quenchers during the hot summers! This sweet fruit normally consumed as is or with salads is 91% of water. The most shocking fact is that most nutritious part of this green striped fruit – the rind – is more often than not trashed / composted.

Now I believe we have a good reason not to discard this peel but use it. Scrape the outer green layer off and taste the rind. It can be consumed as is or ground to make rind juice or cooked to consume as a curry!!!

I thought why not use this with the popular South Indian breakfast element – Dose / Dosa and make the breakfast interesting?

Yes, the watermelony taste of the rind with the fibrous oats enhanced with the flavour of coconut ground with rice and slow cooked over medium heat results in dose, which can be consumed as is without any accompaniment!!! Such is the taste that this has been approved by my little daughter who demanded this dose for all the three meals of the day. For a change, her school lunch box too came back empty!!!

My personal favourite is to have this dose with fresh butter dipped in honey!!! The sweet-toothed that I am, find a divine taste in this combination.

But you can consider having it with accompaniments like coconut chutney or sagu.

It goes well with Kuah Kacang as well. If it is season of jackfruit, you may consider it with my another dish prepared out of mostly discarded item – Jackfruit seeds, Jackfruit Seed Butter . Yet again, if you have some mangoes in stock, you can try this Dose with Mango Ketchup.

I have prepared this dish several times at home and each time with slightly different combination. Yet, they all tasted well. To the same dish, you can consider skipping the watermelon fruit and include an equal amount of water melon rind itself. The dish will still taste the same, except for its colour which will be slightly on the greener side. You can easily omit the coconut inclusion if you dont want to and you need not even substitute it with anything. The dose will still be tasty and soft in texture.

Other Dose varieties:

Neer Dose

Cabbage Mint Dose

Tricolour Neer Dose

Jackfruit Dose

Lets quickly look into the recipe:

Total Time:5 hours 45 minutes

Preparation Time:10 minutes

Soaking Time: 5 hours

Cooking Time: 35 minutes

Makes: 12 Doses

Ingredients:

Dose Rice: 1 cup

Watermelon rind: 1 cup

Watermelon pieces: 0.5 cup

Oats: 0.5 cup

Salt to taste

Coconut: 0.25 cup(Optional)

Method:

Quick Video:

Wash and soak rice for about 2 hours

Scrape the green peel off the rind and chop the rind to small pieces

Grind the water melon pieces and rind to a smooth paste. Keep aside

Grind soaked rice, oats and coconut with the watermelon rind paste created above, until smooth batter is formed

The batter should be smooth and the consistency should be as of the normal dose / dosa batter

Transfer to a container. Add salt and mix well. Cover and let it rest for about 5 to 6 hours

Heat an iron tawa / non-stick tawa. Grease the tawa if required. Pour a ladle full of the batter and smear on to the tawa surface and cook it for about 1-2 minutes over medium flame

Unmould dosa and cook it on the reverse direction too for about 30 seconds. Unmould and serve the hot and tasty watermelon rind dose with the accompaniment of your choice

Note:

Avoid using water while grinding as the watermelon rind paste is sufficient to grind the rice and add water only if you feel the batter is thick

Watermelon rind stories:

Summer is most awaited for the variety of fruits that it has to offer. Be it the mangoes, jackfruits or the watermelon, it is a muddle in the mind to select what to eat!!! This large round green striped fruit gets so tempting especially when the street vendor displays the sliced fruit with deep red flesh of the fruit in it.

Furthermore, we end up buying the fruit just for its sweet red fleshy mesocarp and discard the external rind without knowing that it is the most nutritious part of the fruit. It was then that I thought why not scrape the outer layer and use this rind in raw or cooked form? Now, every time we purchase the fruit, we consume the fruit and use its rind in cooking. One of my favourite dishes prepared using the watermelon rind is this dose. Not just me, it happens to be my daughter’s favourite too.

All of us at home simply love this dish. Is it the same with you too? Do let us know your thoughts about this recipe and all others here. Also,keep pouring in your suggestions, comments and ideas.