Appam / Plain Hoppers / Aappam

Amma makes Aappam every week and it is highly liked by all for breakfast, next to idly and dosa. We use sugar mixed coconut milk for serving. But, for the past few months, My dad has not been including coconut in his diet due to his health issues. So, We skip adding coconut now a days to the batter and also serve it with plain milk and sugar instead of coconut milk. You have to slightly compromise the taste but it gives the complete satisfaction as we get in aappam with coconut milk. Since the sweeter version is preferred by my family members, very rarely we prepare coconut based vegetable kurma and stew for aappam. When I prepare it for next time, I’ll share the recipe in my blog.

Basic Information:

Soaking Time: 5 hours

Grinding Time: 20-25 minutes

Fermentation Time: 6-8 hours

Preparation Time: <10 minutes

Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Serves: 7-8 persons

Ingredients:

Raw rice / Pacharisi – 2cups

Idly rice / Par boiled rice – 2 cups

Urad dal – 1/4 cup

Fenugreek seeds – 2 tablespoons

Coconut – 3/4 cup, grind it to a paste

Salt – to taste

Cooking Soda – 1/4 teaspoon, optional

Water – As required

Method:

1) Wash Raw rice, Idly rice, Urad dal and Fenugreek seeds well and soak it for 5 hours.

2) After five hours, drain the water and grind it to a smooth batter. Add necessary water to help grinding. The batter should look smooth but when you touch it using your finger, you should see the slight grainy texture.

3) Add salt and mix well. Keep this batter in a container and allow it to ferment for 6-8 hours. The fermentation time differs from place to place.

4) Put the coconut pieces into the mixer and grind it to a paste. Add this ground coconut to the fermented batter. Add cooking soda if using. Mix well.

5) Add enough water and make thin batter. The consistency of the batter should be slightly thinner than the dosa batter. It should be easily pourable.

6) Heat the aappam pan. When it is hot, smear it with oil. It is not necessary, if you are using non-stick pan. Pour a ladle full of batter to the center of the pan.

7) Rotate the pan quickly by holding the holder of the pan using your hand and make the batter to spread well to the sides of the aapam pan.

8) Cover using the lid for 1-2 minutes.  After 2 minutes, Check the aappam is cooked. When it is cooked, the edges of aappam comes out from the aappam pan. If it is not, cover again and cook for few seconds.

9) If done, using a spatula, carefully take away from the aappam pan. No need to flip it.

 10) Serve hot with coconut milk and sugar.

Notes:

1) Cooking soda is optional. I didn’t use it in my aappam preparation.

2) You can also add grated coconut while grinding the batter. But I never tried it till now and we follow above method only at our home. Also, After adding ground coconut / coconut milk to the batter, try to use it on the same day. Do not refrigerate it. 

3) Texture and consistency of the batter is important to get perfect shaped and spongy appams.

4) Some times I make batter in a large quantity, transfer the excess batter in a container and keep in the refrigerator without fermenting. Just before the day I plan to prepare aappam, I take the batter out of the refrigerator and ferment it. At most 2 days you can keep the batter inside the refrigerator. Also, I add coconut just before making aappams.

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