Unniyappam Recipe | Neyyappam | Nei Appam | Onam Sadya Recipe

Monday, September 16, 2013

Unniyappam Recipe | Neyyappam | Nei Appam | Onam Sadya Recipe

Happy Onam to all my readers and friends!! Unniyappam is a popular snack in Kerala and is usually made using rice flour, jaggery and banana. In my native, almost all the small tea shops sell Unniyappam for the evening tea time. My grandfather, buy us Unniyappam when we were kids and I am crazy about this snack. Off to the recipe:

Ingredients:

Raw Rice - 1 Cup

Coconut(Grated) - 1/4 cup

Jaggery - 1/2 Cup

Ripe Banana - 2(small)

Sesame seeds - 1/2 tsp

Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp

Cardamom Powder - 1/4 tsp

Baking Soda - a pinch(optional)

Ghee/ Oil - fry

Method:

1. Wash and soak the rice for a minimum of 2 hours. In a pan, roast the coconut by adding a teaspoon of ghee. Remove it from flame once it turns golden brown. Meanwhile, grind the soaked rice and jaggery to a smooth paste by adding a little water.

2. Transfer the jaggery and rice batter to a mixing bowl. In the same mixie jar, puree the bananas.

3. Now mix the roasted coconut and the pureed banana with the jaggery rice batter. The batter should be the same as the idli batter consistency. It should not be too thin. Along with this, add the cardamom powder, sesame seeds and cumin seeds to the batter and mix well. If using baking soda mix that. Allow it to ferment for about 2 hours. In a paniyaram pan, add some oil or ghee until 3/4th of the hole(depression).

4. Once it is hot, pour the batter in each hole. Allow it to cook on medium flame. Once the bottom turns golden brown, flip to cook the other side too. When cooked, remove and drain on tissue paper.

Serve it hot with evening tea :)

Points to remember:

The very well fermented batter gives soft unniyappam. In the summer it takes only 2 hours, but for the rest of the days allow it to ferment for nearly 4 hours. Ripe Banana helps in the fermentation, if the banana is not very ripe you can use a pinch of baking soda.
Instead of soaking and grinding the raw rice, ready made rice flour can be used.
Instead of cooking it in Ghee, you can opt for coconut oil or other oil as well. If not using ghee for frying, then add one teaspoon of ghee to the batter to enhance the flavor.
Usually, Poovan Pazham (banana) is used for making this unniyappam. But you can use any variety.
You can also dissolve the jaggery in a little water by heating it in low flame. Then strain impurities from the dissolved jaggery and mix with the rice batter.