Ingredients : Rice flour(1 cup), jaggery(powdered-1 cup), cardomom(4 pods), ghee(3 tsp), maida or milk powder(1 tblspn), oil for frying, dry grated coconut(1 tsp0..optional.
Alternatively, use rava/sooji instead of rice flour...it will give the desired thickness to the dough and will not alter the taste in the least.
Grind the riceflour/rava and the cardomom pods
into a very thick paste.
Add the powdered jaggery and grind again.
When you grind the jaggery, do not add
water..the jaggery will melt on its own.
To this thick ground paste, add the
ghee and the maida/milk powder.
Coconut can be added optionally.
With a sunken ladle, pour small quantities
into the oil(the size of a cookie) and deep fry to a rich dark brown color.
Hints:
1. Adding milk powder/maida helps thicken
the dough and give additional softness to the appams.
2. Appams are usually deep-fried in
ghee..hence the name nei appam. Such appams are very fatty
and so to produce the same taste as ghee-fried appams, the 3 tsp
of ghee are added to the dough before frying.
3. Appams are usually made in
a deep bottomed vessel called the "appa-karai" which has specifically designed
cups for making such appams. In the absence of such a
vessel, make sure that the dough is very thick, so that it
does not run when poured into the pan for deep frying.