Soft and Fluffy Vellayappams – A Syrian Christian Breakfast Speciality

Though the standard combination is a chicken stew or egg roast, today I made a spicy beef curry with coconut milk. Dipping pieces of appam into the rich gravy of beef and potato; I feel like going and taking a second helping though I have already had my breakfast. Maybe I’ll have it again as an evening snack; provided there’s any left by then.

The most significant meal of the Christians of Kerala, Easter Sunday traditions are incomplete without a grand breakfast of Appam and chicken stew, signalling the end of forty days of lent. Vellayappams are round and thick whereas pal-appams have a thick centre and thin lacy edges. Palappam is made in appachatty while vellayappam is made on a tawa. The batters are slightly different and the end products are quite different. The garlic and cumin give an amazing aroma and flavour to vellayappam.

VELLAYAPPAM

Ingredients for Appam:

• Raw rice (white) – 2 cup
• Cooked rice – 1 cup
• Coconut scraped –2 cup
• Sugar (crystal) – 1½ tbsp
• Garlic- 2 cloves [opt.]
• Cumin seeds- a pinch [opt.]
• Yeast – 1 tsp
• Salt to taste
• Baking soda – ¼ tsp

Method of Preparation:

• Wash and soak rice in enough water for a minimum of 4 hours.
• Grind all the ingredients except baking soda and salt, to a smooth paste with 1 cup water.
• Cover and keep aside for fermentation for 7-8 hours.
• Mix the batter with a ladle. If the batter is too thick, loosen the batter with coconut milk, coconut water or plain water to get required pouring consistency. Batter has to be thick, put smooth enough to pour. This is thicker than palappam batter.
• Heat a flat Non Stick Tava and pour a ladle full of batter. Do not spread the batter with the ladle.
• Cover with a lid and allow it to cook on medium heat for around 2-3 minutes.
• Turn the appam and cook the other side till it is slightly brown.
• Eat it nice and warm with stew or egg roast.

Additional Tips:

• Add a ¼ tsp of baking soda to the batter after fermentation to make appams even softer.
• Stirring the fermented batter too often breaks the bubbles in the batter and makes the appams hard.
• Left-over batter can be refrigerated up to two days.
• Palappam batter is of pancake consistency while vellayappam batter is thicker and vattayappam batter is thickest.