Appam without yeast Kerala style - Fermented rice and coconut cake

Cooking time: 30 min. / 2 min.Difficulty: easy

Indian fermented rice cake, special food of Kerala. The main difference between appam and for instance dosa, is not only the "hopper" shape, but content of fresh grated coconut. There are variants with and without yeast. The base are blended rice and coconut, which ferment overnight. This time is not included in the time of preparation mentioned above :)

Process

Rinse dry rice with lukewarm water first. Then put it to a pot with lukewarm water and set aside for 4-6 hours to soak and soften.

In 4-6 hours blend in a blender and pour to a pot.

Put to a blender grated coconut, boiled rice and water. Blend.

Mix properly in the pot with soaked blended rice. The consistency should be a thick, but still runny batter. To make it more runny, use more water, to make it thicker, you can use rice flour too.

Cover and set aside overnight in a room temperature, which should exceed 25°C. Do not cover it tight. Air and water temperature and air access are the key success factors for starting fermentation process. Common room temperature in south India is usually above 25°C. So if your room is cool, put it on central heating for instance. Even handling rice and lentils with hands should help, as the warmth from your hands helps starting the fermentation process too.

Do not salt the mix in the evening before fermentation. Salt could prevent the mix from fermenting too. Salt it to taste only in the morning (after the fermentation process).

So in the morning salt to taste, mix the batter properly.

Heat up a hopper pan. Do not use oil, there is enough fat from the coconut.

Pour one ladle of batter into the pan, by gyration the pan in the air spread the batter to the sides too. Not to the very top, just to the middle approximately.

Cover and fry about 2 minutes.

Serve with chammanthi (red coconut chutney), sugar or sweetened coconut milk.

To buy a hopper pan US, To buy rice flour US, UK, Europe, To To buy a coconut scraper US, UK, Europe, To buy a coconut milk US, UK, Europe