Appam

This recipe is the outcome of a failure. Initially I started making this with the idea of making Chekkalu (I know Andhra guys would laugh at this). I read somewhere sometime back the instructions to make this but I never tried this before and out of blue I felt the urge to eat this right away. I tried the ready made ones from the Indian store but didn’t like any brand so I started making mine.

I made the dough and started frying them but they were coming out soft (Initially I made small circles) and I knew then and there that the recipe failed. After frying a batch, Ravi was disappointed too and asked me do you really want to eat such deep friend stuff? This was taking so much oil and we had to use many paper towels to remove oil from them. I switched off the stove, thinking of keeping the dough in the refrigerator and make Akki Rotis the next day.

I asked Ravi to taste one and he immediately said: oh! this is Appam. It seems like his mom used to make this often in summer holidays. And I asked him if I should continue making them, he said yeah, but make them big and round and thick. I went back to the kitchen, heated the oil again and made appams with the remaining dough. He said we can use various gourds to that and fry them. I thought I will try that next time. But, as I said this needs lot of oil and people with cholesterol problems should better avoid that.

I put a stock pot on the stove, added 6 cups of water, about 4 tbsps of jeera, half cup of chana dal (soaked for half hour), turmeric, and salt and boiled it. Added 2 cups of rice flour and mixed (the end result would be a big ball of rice flour). Used ziploc or wax paper to make shapes, applied oil to palms (because the dough gets sticky) and deep fried in oil. And this frying takes a lot of time and you need to have lot of patience with this.