" Unni Appam "

" Unni Appam "
By Chef Prashant Adsule.

Appam is traditional south Indian sweet made during special Holidays and Festivals . It looks similar to kuzhipaniyaram, except it is made mainly with rice and jaggery. They are always available as prasad in most kerala temples. It's soft and fluffy inside with a slight crisp to bite outside. Adding banana, especially " poovan" variety makes it very soft. Adding ghee to the batter makes it quite flavorful and that's the trade off for frying it in ghee!

Ingredients :

Rice powder-2 cups
Maida or flour-’ cup
Banana-2 (squashed)
Jaggery-1.5 cups
Ghee-4 tablespoons
Cardamom powder-2 teaspoons
Cinnamon powder-1 teaspoon
Coconut pieces-20
Oil-2 tablespoon

Method :

1. Heat 1 cup of water in a pan and when it it is steaming add the jaggery to it. The jaggery will eventually melt and take on a syrup like consistency.
2. Cut small pieces of coconut and fry them in ghee. Add them to the molten jaggery and simmer for a few minutes.
3. Meanwhile, make a mixture of rice powder and flour in a mixing bowl.
4. Take the bananas, mash them and add it to the boiling jaggery soup. Let it simmer for another 2 minutes for the flavours to bleed.
5. Pour the jaggery syrup over the mixture and stir it simultaneously to prevent the formations of chunks of unmixed flour.
6. Add the cardamon and cinnamon powder for flavour now and mix it well.
7. The paste like semi solid mass you have is your batter for appams.
8. Pour the the batter into appam moulds and give it the sitting time of an hour to solidify.
9. Now fry both sides of the appam in ghee or oil as you choose and serve hot on Onam.