Palakkad recipes

[Sowmya]

Mrs.Chitra's recipes

Paththiri
Ingredients:
Rice flour 2 cups
Grated coconut ½ cup for extracting coconut milk or you can use canned coconut milk.
Salt to taste

Heat up a saucepan and add the rice flour and fry it until an aroma is released. Remove the flour from the pan and set aside.
Squeeze milk from the grated coconut. Keep aside the thick first milk. Squeeze the second milk. Boil the second milk with salt. (About ½ a cup to make soft dough, when the rice flour is added to this) Add the rice flour to the milk and mix well. In case you need more liquid, you may add boiled water to make the dough. Cover the pan and let it rest for a few minutes. Now take it out and knead the dough well, while it is still hot. Keep this aside for 30 minutes.
Take the dough and divide this into small lemon size spheres. Roll it into thin circles like you make Chappathies. Use flour while rolling it, to prevent sticking to the surface. Heat up a non-stick pan or Dosa making pan, and place the Paththiri on it. No need to grease the pan. Turn the Paththiri after a minute and then again one more time. Small bubbles will pop up on it. When done take it out and apply thick coconut milk on either side. Continue till all the Paththiries are made.
Paththiries go well with Kuruma or any meat curries.

Varutha Paththiri – this is deep fried in oil. Naipaththiri is also deep fried.
Spicy Paththries- You can add spices to the dough and make Paththiries on a non stick pan, the same way as the above written recipe.
For the aboue Paththri recipe, you may either use rice flour (from store), or you may soak long grain rice, grind and make flour. You need to roast the flour, before making the dough.

Naippaththiri

Ingredients:
Parboiled rice 1 ½ cup
Long grain rice ½ cup
(Soak the parboiled and the long grain rice for 6 hours)
Grated coconut ½ cups
Fennel or Cumin seeds ½ teaspoon
Onion - You need one half of a medium onion
Salt to taste
Oil for deep frying

Method:
Grind all the above ingredients, adding as little water as possible, to a coarse consistency. Mix the dough very well, and keep aside for 30 minutes.
Divide the dough into small lemon size spheres.
In a heavy bottomed saucepan, pour enough oil to fry the Paththiries. Heat up the oil.
Apply a little bit of ghee or oil on a banana leaf or wax paper. Place the lemon size dough on it, and pat with your hand to a round shape. It should be ¼ inch thick. Deep fry each one, turning it once, to a light golden color. They will puff up when pressed with a slotted spoon, while frying.
NOTE: Instead of the round shape, you can pinch all around it with fingers and shape it as a star. Then fry it.

[Sowmya]

Mrs.Chitra's recipes

Vellayappam
Ingredients:
Rice flour(You can get this from Indian store)2 ½ cup
Cream of rice or cream of wheat (Rava) ½ cup
Dry yeast 1 teaspoon
Sugar 1 tablespoon
Coconut milk 1 ½ cup - freshly extracted preferred (canned variety may be substituted)
Salt to taste
Warm water (not very hot, for this will kill the yeast. Water temperature should be 100-110 degree F) ½ cup
Baking powder ½ teaspoon (add this to the batter just before making the appam.)

Method:
Heat up a saucepan (Medium heat) and roast the rice flour until an aroma is released. Transfer the flour to another container, big enough to hold the batter. Take warm water in a small container, and add yeast and sugar. Mix well and keep it aside to rise.
Place the cream of rice or rava in a small pot, and add about a cup of water. Mix well and heat it up, until it is cooked. If required, you may add more water to this while cooking. Let this cool down. Add this and salt to the rice flour and mix. By this time the yeast will rise up. Add the yeast and coconut milk to the flour, and beat and mix well with the hand. You may add tepid water to make a thick batter. You should mix this batter very well with your hand for 5-10 minutes. Tie a cotton cloth around the mouth of the container, and keep it in a warm place to ferment. If you prepare this in the evening, keep it over night to ferment.
In the morning, when you remove the cover, you will see small holes in the batter. Mix it well with a spoon and let it stand for a while. It will start to rise up.
The consistency of the batter should be, a little thinner than that of Dosa batter. If necessary, you may add water, or coconut milk to thin it. Check the salt and adjust. Add ½ teaspoon Baking powder to the batter and mix well. If you want the lacy edge of the Vellayappan, dark brown in color, you may add 1 or 2 tablespoon sugar to the batter, just before making the appam. The caramalized sugar will give a darker color to the edge, when it gets fried. If you like soft white edge, don't add extra sugar to the fermented batter. (But you must add 1 tablespoon sugar to the yeast when you let it rise at the beginning.)

Making the appam:
A small wok with a curved bottom and a lid is required to make this appam. The saucepan should have handles on either side, to hold and move the pan in a circular motion.
Apply a little non stick spray and heat up the saucepan. Sprinkle some water inside the pan and if it sizzles, it is hot enough to make the appam. Wipe the pan with a paper towel and pour a ladleful of batter. Hold the pan with both hands and rotate the pan, so that the batter will move around in a circle. This will create a very thin lacy edge all around the center. The center will be thick, and when cooked it will be soft and spongy. Cover the pan with a lid and wait for a couple of minutes. You may insert a toothpick to test the doneness. When done the edge will develop a darker color than the white center. Now you remove the Vellayappam from the pan with a spatula. Wipe the pan with the paper towel dipped in a little oil and repeat the process till enough appams are made. You can store the left over batter in the fridge for a couple of days.
Serve this appam with potato stew.

[Shoba]

Hi Sowmya,

The Vellayappam (vellappam) recipe & procedure is more like Paalappam. Quite sometime back there was a query on the essential differences between Vellappam and Paalappam and the answer was given in great detail by Seema. Check this link out:

http://forumhub.com/southfood/7816.10.07.29.html

She's 100% right!

Regards,
Shoba

[Sowmya]

Hi Shoba
Thanks a lot for the useful link which clearly shows the difference b/n vellappam and palappam.
I've been thinking they are the same

BTW been wanting to ask you this for quite some time..
my understanding is "payasam" and "pradhaman" are 2 diff terms used to denote the same.(dessert).Is there any specific difference here too?

Regards
sowmya

[Shoba]

Hello there Sowmya!

From what I can remember from my tharavaad days, in a sadya where there are 8 or more dishes served, there will be two varieties of desserts. One is the milk & sugar based paayasam and the other, jaggery & coconut milk based pradhaman.

"Pradhamam" (pradhaman) means first choice or of prime importance, and so if there is a sadya where there are less than 8 dishes, then paayasam is dropped in favour of pradhaman. There could be some explanation to this, as there was a time when milk was available only to a selected few..

Also, paayasam is more liquidy than pradhaman. And in Kerala, there is a custom of eating bananas & pappadam with one's pradhaman. But it isnt done so with the milk based paayasam.

Usually rasam is served after pradhaman. I think this is to clear and prepare one's palate for the onslaught of the milk & sugar paayasam! This is then followed by curd/curd rice to aid digestion and help you ease into a python's slumber :P

That's about all I can remember!

Regards,
Shoba

[Sowmya]

Mrs.Chitra's recipes

Varuththa Paththiri (Fried Paththiri)
Rice flour 1 cup
Maida 1 cup
Grated coconut ½ cup
Water 1 cup
Salt to taste
Sesame seed 1 teaspoon
Cumin seed ½ teaspoon
Method:
Boil water and add salt. Turn off the stove and add, rice flour, Maida, coconut and mix well. Add Sesame seed and cumin, mix the dough and let it stand for an hour.
Now divide the dough into small rounds, and roll them into small circle like Poori. Deep fry them in oil.

I think we can either use the rice flour from the store, or soak rice(long grain), grind and make flour at home.
Once I tried with parboiled rice alone, but it broke up while frying. Next time I am planning to try with 1 cup long grain + 1/4 cup parboiled and see whether that ratio will make it better.
Since this Paththri will be crispy, I think this will go with some preparation like Poori masala (Potatoes), which is not watery

Arabian Paththiri:
I got this recipe from a Malayalam magazine, Vanitha. It was written by Sharafudheen. I have not tried this recipe yet. This is a spicy Paththiri, which doesn’t need any special curry.

Ingredients:
Rice flour 2 cups
water 1 cup
Red chili powder ½ teaspoon
Coriander powder 1 teaspoon
Curry powder ½ teaspoon
Salt to taste
Thick coconut milk to apply on the cooked Paththiri
Method:
Boil water, and add salt. Turn off the stove and add the rice flour and mix well. Add the spices and knead the dough well and keep aside for 30 minutes. Divide the dough into small spheres, and roll them like Chappathies. Use rice flour while rolling the Paththiries. Cook them just like Chappathies. While still warm apply coconut milk, and they can be eaten without any special curry.

[Sowmya]

Shoba
Thanks a lot for the detailed explanation.

Regards
Sowmya

[rain]

hello shobha,

it was nice reading your informative account on paysam and pradhaman.does that mean both "paladda and paruppu pradhaman" that is served in marriages have only coconut milk and jaggery in them ?and can the paladda be also made like paysam (with milk) and still be called pradhaman?

hope i am not bothering u much.but i was a little curious.i love the pradhaman esp.paladda served for marriages and in guruvayoor and the bit about the python's slumber is sooo true.

thanks and regards,
rain

[Shoba]

hello shobha,

it was nice reading your informative account on paysam and pradhaman.does that mean both "paladda and paruppu pradhaman" that is served in marriages have only coconut milk and jaggery in them ?and can the paladda be also made like paysam (with milk) and still be called pradhaman?

hope i am not bothering u much.but i was a little curious.i love the pradhaman esp.paladda served for marriages and in guruvayoor and the bit about the python's slumber is sooo true.

thanks and regards,
rain

Hi Rain!

Paalada pradhaman is milk based with (ada) steamed rice flakes in it. Parippu pradhaman on the other hand is coconut milk based.

I think the usage of the term pradhaman is somewhat like 'the preferred one' regardless of whether it is milk or coconut milk based, know what I mean..?

Aye, not a problem with questions :P . Temples usually serve milk based paayasams/pradhamans coz cow's milk is not "processed" (shudham) like coconut milk. But then again, I have seen UHT recombined milk packets in temples..so, hmmm... ...

Shoba

[rain]

thanks for replying,shobha.

regards,
rain