Spongy Kerala Appam Recipe

This recipe is one of my Amma's delicious dishes. So I follow her steps in preparing soft and spongy Appam with a side dish of sweetened coconut milk and Kerala style Vegetable stew.

Ingredients:

• Raw Rice - 2 cups
• Boiled Rice(Normal Cooking Rice) - 1 cup
• Grated coconut - 1 and 1/2 cups
• Salt as per taste
• Sugar - 2 tbsp
• Baking Soda - a pinch

To prepare sweet coconut milk:

• Coconut milk - 1 cup
• Powdered Jaggery / Karumbu Sakkarai -  2 tbsp
• Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp

Method:

Wash and soak both the rice together in a bowl. 

Grind the rice. when it is coarsely grounded add the grated coconut and grind along with the rice for 15 minutes. Now check the batter whether it is grounded to a fine paste. If not grind it for some more minutes. You can add little water while grinding.

Transfer the batter to a bowl. Clean the grinder with drinking/good water because we need this water for preparing starch. Collect this cleaned water in a seperate bowl.

Starch Preparation:

Take this water to a heavy bottomed pan and heat this keeping the stove in simmer. Stir continuously without forming any lumps. It will end up in thick consistency. Starch is now ready. Allow it to cool for some time.

Mix this starch solution with the batter and keep overnight for fermentation. Now the batter has rised up to a small quantity (3rd picture).

Add sugar, salt and baking soda to the batter and mix well. The consistency of the batter should be like this.

Pour a laddle full of batter in a Appam Pan (deep centered Pan) and swirl around to get a circular shape of appam. Close the lid to cook. It will cook for around 30 seconds in a medium flame. Open the lid and take out from the pan. Do not turn appam to the other side. 

Now extract coconut milk from grated coconut.

Mix jaggery and cardamom with the coconut milk and stir continuously till the jaggery is completely mixed in coconut milk.

Now delicious Appam with an aroma of coconut is ready to serve with Sweet coconut milk and Chutney. Kerala style Vegetable stew also goes well with Appam.

Notes:

• The appam batter should be thick in consistency while taking from the grinder.
• Do not use more water to clean the grinder as we need thick starch to mix with the batter.
• You can use normal white sugar for sweet coconut milk.