Unniappam....without Banana

Unniappam is a popular snack in Kerala. Usually unni appams are made with banana as a main ingredient . Adding bananas makes the appam soft. but the shelf life is very less. This recipe is about making unniappam without adding bananss . we can store these appams for a week and use.

Ingredients:

Raw rice - 1 cup
Maida / Refined flour - 1 cup
Jaggery cubes - 3/4 cup
water- 1 cup  
Cardamom - 3 green
Black Sesame seeds / Ellu - 1 tsp
Coconut Bits / thenga Kothu - 1/4 cup
snauf / prinjeerakam - 1tsp.(optional)
Salt - to taste, 1 pinch.
Coconut oil - ½ cup ( for frying )

Method:

Soak raw rice in water for an hour. Strain the water from rice and grind in a mixer. Sieve the rice flour and grind  lumps of rice again. Rice flour should be very fine without any lumps.

Add 1 cup of water to grated jaggery and heat until it is melted. Let it cool. Strain and Keep aside.

Combine together rice powder, maida and melted jagerry. Pour in  more water as required to get a consistency of idili batter. If the consistency is thin then add some more maida. Mix well and keep aside overnight for fermentation. 

 Heat ghee in a pan and add the coconut pieces.Fry until it turns golden brown.

Add a pinch of salt, ellu / til / sesame seeds, cardamon and fried coconut pieces to the batter. Mix all nicely. 

Keep unniappam chetti on flame and pour oil 3/4 in each mould or else oil will overflow when u pour batter. when oil is hot reduce the flame to medium and pour a scoop of each batter over each mould. Allow to cook for a minute. Invert them with a skewer or a knife. Allow to cook again.

Again invert and cook until golden brown from both sides. Drain on a kitchen towel.

Your Unniyappams are ready. serve them hot with tea or coffee.


Recipe courtesy: Prassana Suagathan

Maida Appam

Ingredients:

Maida (all purpose flour ) - 1 cup

Mashed Banana - 1 (optional)

Jaggery (vellam/Sharkara ) - 1 cup

Water - 1/2 cup

Cardamon powder - 1 tsp

Chopped coconut - 1/4 cup

Baking soda - 1/4 tsp

Refined/ coconut oil - 1 1/2 cups

Method: 

Steam maida in a cooker for two whistles. Keep it for cooling.This process helps to remove the starch from the maida.

Add coconut bits , Baking Powder and cardamon powder to the maida and mix well. Use a small ladle.

Heat a pan, place jaggery in half a cup of water and bring it to a boil, cook until jaggery dissolves completely. when it boils, remove from flame and strain to remove all the impurities. Allow them to cool.Always make sure the jaggery water is cool while adding the flour.To the maida,add this melted Jaggery and mix well. Consistency of batter should not be too thick or too thin. If it's watery appam will absorb more Oil and if very thick it wont get cooked properly. So adjust accordingly. If its too watery add more maida. Let it sit for an hour.

Heat oil in a frying pan, pour a ladle of batter and flip and fry over medium flame until appam gets golden brown on both sides. Continue the same with rest of the batter. Drain the excess oil and serve hot.

Maida Appam ready...:) We can add little rice flour to the batter to get crispy appams.

 Recipe Courtesy: Mallika Vasu (Mother In Law)

Boli, Puran Poli, Obatu, Bobatlu/ Holige

Ingredients:
Bengal Gram( Channa dal, Kadalaparuppu) - 2 cups
Jaggery - 2 cups
Maida (All Purpose Flour) - 1 1/2 cups
Rice Flour - 1 tsp(Optional)
Suji Rava - 1 tsp(Optional)
Cardamon Powder - 1/4 tsp
Turmeric Powder- 1/4 tsp
Water - as needed to make the dough
Salt - a pinch

Butter/ Ghee/ Oil - 1/4 cup

Method:

Pressure cook channa dal. Cook till it is well cooked and drain all water when hot ,and let it dry on paper towel if needed. Powder it in mixer and add jaggery to channa dal Powder and cook till thick .

OR

If the water is all dried up after pressure cooking the dal. Add powdered Jaggery to dal and cook till all water is dried up. Add cardamon Powder to it and mix well.

After the dal mixture is cool enough to handle, start making the balls. Keeping this in fridge helps in making the dal balls easier.

Make dough with maida, turmeric powder, suji ,salt and rice flour together .Add enough water and make it into a very soft dough.Also add oil to make a soft dough.Make balls and keep aside.

The dal mixture balls should be bigger than the dough only then the final boli will taste good.Take a dough ball and spread out into a small circle with hand. Keep the sweet dal ball in center of the rolled out dough. Bring all the sides of the dough to the center to cover the filling completely.Seal it nicely and press it again to form a circle.

Place it in on a  greased plastic sheet. Press with your fingers till expands to the desired circumference.Cook the boli on  both sides on a hot griddle using some butter/ghee/oil. Remove when brown spots appear on both sides.

Enjoy boli/Puran Poli, Obatu, Bobatlu while playing Tamilnadu's Pallamkuzhi.....:)

Recipe Courtesy: Varevah

Ven pongal / Karapongal

Ingredients:

Raw rice - 1 cup
Moong dal / pasi paruppu / Cherupayaruparuppu - 1/4 cup
Water - 4 cups
Milk - 1 cup
Salt - as needed
Ginger, chopped - 1 tblsp
Ghee - 2 tblsp
Pepper corns- 2 tsp
Jeera/ cumin seeds - 2 tsp
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Asafoetida - 2 pinches
Cashews -  5-6

Method:

Wash rice and dal together. In a cooker add 4 cups of water, milk and washed rice, dal, salt and pressure cook for 4 whistles in medium flame.(You can cook rice directly in the cooker also or as I have done) Wait until pressure gets released by itself, open & mash. If the pongal is watery when you open, then you can try keeping it again in stove and mix well until water evaporates. If it is too dry/thick then add some milk to bring it to desired consistency. The rice should have got cooked properly. Pongal should be of soggy consistency so mash well.

In a separate pan  add ghee and fry cashews till it starts golden and keep separately. In the same ghee add pepper, jeera and asafoetida and curry leaves, mix in the heat well and then add it to pongal and mix well. 

yummy pongal is ready....we can mold it using a small bowl. press pongal in a bowl and turn upside down. garnish with nuts.........Usually pongal should hv lots of ghee. But we can change according to our taste, consistency also varies a bit...This pongal can be enjoyed with sambar and coconut chutney.. Happy Pongal:)

Recipe Courtesy: Mrs. Uma Mohan.

Sweet Pongal / Sakkarai pongal

Ingredients:

Raw rice - 1 cup

Yellow moong dal /mung or moong bean/ cherupayaru paruppu - 1/4 cup

Jaggery - 2 cups (Make it 1 !/2 cup for less sweetness)

Water - 4 cups

Milk - 1 cup

Ghee - 4 tablespoons

Cashewnuts - 10

Raisins - 10

Cardamom powder - 1/4 teaspoon

Method:

Wash rice and moong dal. Put it in cooker. Add 4 cups of water, 1 cup of milk and pressure cook till 4 whistles. (You can cook rice directly in the cooker also or as I have done) Allow the pressure to subside.  Open the pressure cooker. Mash the cooked rice and dal nicely.

Melt jaggery and strain to remove impurities or add powdered jaggery to the mashed rice and dal. Mix well so that all get combined well. Pongal should be of soggy consistency so mash well. Add cardamom powder and 2 tablespoons of ghee and mix well.

In a small pan add ghee and fry raisins and nuts. Pour it on pongal and stir well.

Sweet and yummy pongal is ready....we can mold it using a small bowl. press pongal in a bowl and turn upside down. garnish with nuts and raisins..........Usually pongal should hv lots of ghee. But we can change according to our taste, consistency also varies a bit..... Happy Pongal:)

Recipe Courtesy: Mrs. Deepa Sivakumar

Neyyappam

happy vishu.........:)

Neyyappam:

Ingredients:

Boiled Rice- 1 cup

Raw Rice- 1 cup

Maida- 1 cup

Jaggery-250 gms

Til- 2 tbsp

Cardamom - 4 nos

Dried Coconut - cut into small pieces - 3 tbsp (if dried coconut is not available cut fresh coconut into pieces and deep fry them in ghee.)

Coconut oil - 100 gms

Method:

Clean and soak boiled rice and Raw rice in water for 5 hrs. Drain  the water and grind in mixie.  Powder to a coarse powder. (If you have roasted rice flour you can use that also. but mix the batter with hot water and hot melted jaggery)  Mix maida ,melted and strained jaggery to the flour and make a batter of pouring consistency. Keep this batter overnight. Morning, Add cleaned til, cardamom powder and dried coconut and mix well. 

In a kadai pour coconut oil. When oil is heated pour one spoon full of batter to the oil. keep fire in medium flame. when the appam is getting cooked, with the spoon push oil onto the appam. When we do this neyyappam bulges out.

when done, turn the appam to other side. 

When both sides are cooked well remove from oil.

With this measurement we can make upto 18 Neyappams.

Recipe Courtesy: Mrs. Prassana Sugathan (Amma)