Nei Appam | Rice & Jaggery Dumplings | Gluten Free


Appam is usually made during festive days and offered as prasadam to god. I usually make this for all the festivals as it is a family favorite. There are many ways to make it, this method is the traditional way using rice. We can also make it with wheat or rice flour. My mom or paati used to fry this in a pan separately with oil. To make our life easier I have used the Kuzhi Paniyaram pan for frying these. Makes more appams and consumes less oil/ghee. Taste wise almost the same but frying them separately (sometimes fried in ghee) surely enhances the flavor and taste. 


Ingredients Required:
Raw Rice - 1 cup
Jaggery - 3/4 cup to 1 cup (depending on your sweet preference)
Rice flour - 1 tbsp
Cardamon - a big pinch
Coconut pieces - 1 tbsp
Cashew - 1 tbsp
Ghee - for frying

How to make:
Soak the rice for 3 hours and grind to a fine paste by adding minimum water.
Boil the jaggery in 1/4 cup water till a thick consistency. You do not need paagu consistency.
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl  - Ground rice, jaggery, Cardamon, Coconut, Cashew.
You cad add the rice flour depending on the consistency of the batter. It should be idly batter consistency. If it is water-y add in some rice flour, else you can omit this step.
Set this batter aside for 2 hours.
Heat the kuzhi paniyaram and add a tsp of ghee in each hole. Once hot pour in a ladle full of the batter.
Fry on medium heat and add another tsp of ghee on the sides. 
After couple of minutes, you should see bubbles on the top, it is time to flip the appam to cook the other side. Use a spoon or skewer to turn.
Add another tsp of ghee on the sides and wait for couple of minutes till in is golden brown.

Serve hot with butter!



Notes:
You can use oil instead of ghee but the taste would be different and you cannot call it nei appam :)

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