Cooking Kerala Appams in an Aussie Kitchen!

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Traditionally these wonderful rice pancakes are eaten for breakfast with either a vegetable coconut based stew or dipped in sweetened coconut milk.  So Yummy!

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I enjoyed them often in Kerala for breakfast , lunch and dinner…

…and miss them terribly!

So I was very excited when my friend Maya taught me to cook Kerala style appams back in my Canberra kitchen.

With Maya’s help I based the recipe on the YouTube and instructions from Show Me The Curry but tweaked it.

I first mixed 1 tsp dried yeast with 1 Tbsp sugar and ½ cup warm water and fermented to become bubbly/foamy.

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Then I used it to grind 2/3 cup cooled cooked Basmati Rice in a blender/food processor.

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Every time I visit India, I bring back something extra for my kitchen. This time it was a Preethi ‘Mixi’ Blender carried in the hand luggage! This makes easy work of grinding grains and seed spices.

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I then used 280ml (2/3 tin) coconut milk and added this gradually to grind 2 cups Raw Ponni Rice that had been washed and soaked for 4-5 hours. Ponni rice is available from Indian grocery store and is essential to the recipe. This needed to be ground until the batter was very smooth.

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Then I fermented the batter in a warm place for 8 hours (in a large pot with a lid) before adding 4 Tbsp sugar and extra coconut milk added (the rest of the tin).

You need to put the batter in the fridge after it’s fermented where it will keep for a few days.  However, it needs to be room temp for cooking though and a ‘custard –like’ consistency.

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I sped this up after work by putting the pot in a sink of hot water and stirring it occasionally (add extra cow’s milk or coconut milk if needed).

I then used about ½ cup of batter and swirled around an unoiled non-stick medium hot appam pan to achieve a lacy edge and soft crumpty centre and covered it with the lid to cook for a few minutes.

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These are also easily cooked in a frypan if you don’t have an appam pan, although it’s not nearly as good as the appam pan version. Kallappams are cooked like that.

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Appams are great served with a Kerala style coconut based ‘stew’ for breakfast or any curry any time. Great for mopping up the gravy and more delicious than plain rice.

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And completely gluten and dairy free, and FODMAPS friendly!

8 thoughts on “Cooking Kerala Appams in an Aussie Kitchen!”

    • Thank you so much Sunith for telling ne about ada! I never saw those on my trip so I’m fascinated! Thanks so much for the link about them! And also for all the information that I’m adding below because I think Fine Eating readers would be interested too! Next trip to Kerala I will look for these! Thank you!!!!

      Sunith tells me: We can prepare adas with or without steaming. If in case we do not steam them we can opt for making them in a nonstick pan.

      Use roasted rice flour to make the dough using slightly hot water. You should be able to get it from the super markets. Otherwise the dough doesnt gel well.

      Also the dry adas may or need not have jaggery filling. Sometimes fillings are restricted to grated coconut only with sugar. While some prefer to have it with just coconut. In case we need a plain ada, without filling, we need not fold them.
      And the most important part is if we do not have access to banana leaves we can use a sheet of slightly oiled plastic so that it is easy to press the dough on it taking care the plastic sheet doesnt go into the steamer or the non stick pan 🙂

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