Vellayappam (Or Aappam)

Super soft and fluffy rice pancakes for breakfast!

So last Saturday was one of the most eventful days, I mean in the recent past. We had invited a few guests over (from Pradeep's work place); I had an elaborate all vegetarian menu ready and went on preparing one by one. I like experimenting and I love to do it for my guests; although not always. Saturday is mostly half day for my husband and I was expecting him to be back home around 2, and he had to buy a few ingredients too. I started with making mushroom filling for wontons, vegetable stew (to pair with appam), mix for kothu paratha, parboiled the potato wedges and cauliflower.  Everything was going well and good until around 12, I received a call from Pradeep saying he would be late, like around 4.30. I panicked, like I always do, because I hate to keep cooking or spend my break thinking that I am not done yet. Well, I didn't lose my cool. I went ahead and experimented with a small batch of dessert, and cooked the rice. At around 5.30, I received another call saying the families who were supposed to come may not be able to because there was one issue at work. I had no comments. At 6, I received another call saying that the guests can still manage to come just that they would be a bit late. I was happy because I didn't want the food to go waste. I took bath thinking that might help cooling me down and it did. Two of my friends dropped by and I gave them wontons to taste; things were back to normal. Now, at around 7, I receive another call from Pradeep saying that the guests will not be able to make it because the men have to stay on-board late. I know it was not our guests fault, neither my hubby's but the thought that my one day effort went waste, did pinch me worse than I imagined! Finally, we called our friends home, we had fun and they were kind enough to stay till 1 AM, cut my birthday cake and click a few snaps. That did mean a lot to me, in fact as they say, all is well that ends well :) So, the next few posts will be from the vegetarian menu that I prepared for my guests, and to start with, it is vellayappam or appam, which is one of the traditional Kerala breakfast dishes. 

So appams and idiyappams (string hoopers) are always in my menu when I call some non-keralites home. Most of them appreciate kerala food and so I keep one in my menu for them. Appams look good and feel tasty only if the batter is well fermented. I have had my own share of failed attempts before I could get this right.  These days we get the readymade powders which makes it quite an easy deal, but again, I have tried that too and nothing can beat the homemade batter. The feeling after seeing the nice little holes when you pour the fermented batter on to the tawa is just beyond words to describe!   Once the batter is made, the dish is pretty simple to make.

Ingredients

Rice - 2 cups

Urad dal (uzhunnu) - 1 tablespoon

Cooked rice - 3/4 cup

Coconut - 1 small, grated

Sugar - 5 to 6 tablespoons

Salt to taste

Yeast - 1 teaspoon

Coconut milk - 50 ml, thick

Preparation

1. Soak rice and urad dal for at least 4 hrs. Grind it along with cooked rice and grated coconut, with enough water to make moderately thick batter. Pour the batter into a big vessel, which has enough space for it to rise when fermented.

2. In about 25 ml lukewarm water, dissolve sugar and yeast. Leave it aside for 10-15 min. Add it to the batter. Cover the vessel and leave it to ferment overnight.

3. The batter will be well fermented by next day morning. About 2 hours before you make the appams, add salt and coconut milk and stir well to combine. 

Cooking

3. Heat the appam chatti (the one that is concave), pour a big spoonful of batter, swirl it around to spread, close with the lid and cook for about 2-3 min. Open the lid and remove the cooked appam to a casserole box. Repeat the process with the rest of the batter. It will make some 30-40 appams.

If you do not have appam chatti, you can make it in normal dosa pan, as you would make pancakes.

Serving

4. Serve with hot stew or sweet milk or coconut milk

I have some left still, which I will be having for today's dinner. Then I will click the picture and post it here.