Appams are those mouthfuls, minimally oily and nutritious balls of edible joy that take care of many needs without bothering one much into cooking. Even a casual effort at making the best of appams succeeds for sure, all credit to the appam makers and the batter. Konkani Goravle is one such appam, made of egg and sooji, enriched with coconut milk, flavoured with cardamom powder, and fermented with baking powder and baking soda. These appams are just incredibly soft and smooth textured, accredited to the eggs, with sweetness and mesmerising taste that would just want to indulge in repeatedly.
Sweet Appams
Appams in general and sweet appams, in particular, are extremely cherished food items cooked commonly in not just South India and Maharashtra, but also coastal belts like Goa and Gujarat. Some of the popularly made sweet appams are Nei Appam, made for the Thirukarthigai festival with rice flour and jaggery, Sweet Paniyaram made with the leftover Idli batter and Godhumai Appam made of wheat, semolina, rice flour and jaggery. There are some more varieties of sweet appam made in Kerala like Unni appam made with rice flour, coconut, banana, jaggery and sesame seeds, and Neyyappam made with jaggery, rice and ghee.
Now let's deal a bit with the word Appam, and all that it means. Appam means pancake made primarily with fermented rice batter and coconut milk. These extremely staple food items of entire South India even transcend borders, being a popular food and ancient item even in Sri Lanka and Burma. As far as its origin is concerned, food historian K. T. Achaya states that the appam is mentioned in a Tamil poem Tamil Perumpanuru of ancient Sangam literature.
Preparation: 8 hours 30 minutes
Cooking: 30 minutes
Servings: 3-4 people
Ingredients:
- 200 ml thick coconut milk
- 400 ml diluted coconut milk
- ⅛ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- A pinch of orange colour
- 300 gm sooji
- 1 egg
- ½ tsp cardamom powder
- 100gm sugar
- Ghee as per requirement
Method:
- Heat a pan a little, and immediately add diluted coconut milk and add salt to it.
- Add 50 gm of the sooji to it and keep stirring the mixture on low to medium flame until it thickens. Then turn off the flame and let it cool down a bit.
- When it cools down add 200 ml thick coconut milk to the pot, and add the remaining sooji to it.
- Then add an egg to it and mix thoroughly and incorporate the baking powder, soda, salt and food colour and mix well.
- Cover the pot and leave this batter to be fermented overnight.
- After it is fermented, add sugar to it, mix well, and leave the batter for 5 minutes.
- Then heat ghee in an appam maker, and pour the batter into each mould. Cover and let them cook for 3-4 minutes on both sides. Turn off the flame and serve.
Curd can be used alternatively in place of eggs. Konkani Goravale requires hardly any time and work to prepare once they are fermented. One can't help but feel compelled to cook these batter-based sweetmeats prepared perfectly and neatly in the indigenously devised appam makers.