Jackfruit Appam – A traditional snack from the kerala and mangalore regions of south India, this was my first time with Jackfruit Appam. The recipe is handed down to me from my Mother-in-law who is an expert at appam. This is a twist on the Unni Appam which is made with just raw rice and jaggery. The mild sweetnes of the jackfruit adds a distinctive flavour to the regular appam. Do try it and post your comments.
Neyyappam thinnal rendundu karyam, Appavum thinnam, meniyum minukkam” . Transilation : A snack fried in ghee so delicious and tasty and dripping with ghee that, we eat the appam and our body gets the sheen from the ghee that drips from it.
In the recipe I have used a Tansong method while making the batter for the appam. Though the term might sound foreign to us, It is not new to our Indian culinary methods. The Tangzhong method is known to the world as an Asian technique to make soft buns. In this method we take a small quantity of batter and thin it by adding water or milk to it based on the recipe. This thin batter is briefly cooked just for a few minutes till the batter becomes thick and slurry . This thickened batter at room temperature is added to the rest of the batter or dough. The reason to do this is to gelatinize the starches in the batter or dough. In this case the batter thickens a bit absorbing the water around it, and making the batter less sticky. The moisture retention being high in the batter will result in a softer long lasting appams.
Jackfruit Appam
A traditional snack from the Mangalore, Kerala coast of South India.
Ingredients
1 cup Raw rice
1 cup Jaggery
8 full pieces of Jackfruit pods (Approx to fill a cup to the top)
1 tsp Cardamom
1 tsp Urad dhal
3 tbsp Coconut cut into small pieces (optional)
1 cup oil for frying
1 tbsp rice flour (if necessary)
Directions
- Soak the raw rice in water for two hours.
- Break the jaggery into smaller pieces to make it easy to grind in a mixer.
- Drain the water off the soaked rice and urad dhal and grind it in a mixer with ¾ cup of water.
- Once the rice and urad dhal are ground to a smooth paste, add the jaggery and jackfruit and grind well to make it to a uniform smooth consistency. Check to see jackfruit fibers are ground well into the mixture.
- Leave the mixture to ferment for 7 hours. Slight fermentation helps in reducing oil consumption and increases the porosity of the appam.
- Take 3 tbsp of the ground batter in a clean saucepan, to do the Tangzhong technique. Add ½ cup of water and dilute the mixture. Switch on the stove and stir the mixture as it becomes sluggy and thick for just a few minutes. Set it aside to cool to room temperature.
- Add the thickened sluggy to the fermented appam batter and mix thoroughly so that the mixture is uniform.
- Now the batter is ready for making appam. Place the Appamchatti (Non stick or bronze ) on the stove in sim.
- FIll the round cavities with gingelly oil till it fills the cups. Add 1 Tbsp of ghee for flavour.
- When the oil is heated for frying, drop a small quantity to fill ¾ th of each cavity with batter.
- The oil will fry the batter from all sides. Wait for a few minutes before you turn it over with a small spoon. Allow it to fry both sides.
- The well fried appam will be a deep golden brown colour on all sides.
- The traditional way to pick up the appam would be with a sharp steel stick stacking one on the other, which helps in draining the oil fully.
- If you feel the appam is absorbing more oil, add a spoon of rice flour to the mixture to adjust the consistency. Usually excess water would lead to appam absorbing more oil.
- As we have used the Tangzhong method, the appam will be soft on the inside and crispy on the outside and keep well for a few days in an airtight container. http://www.Naturallyhema.com
Naturally Hema 