Nei Appam Recipe (Neyyappam) | Karthigai Deepam Recipes

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One of the few festivals I look forward each year. Lighting diyas and collecting new ones each year has always been special to me.Now clicking each diya has also been added to the list :) Last year I posted pori urundai and this year when I googled, I found neiappam from Shanthijis space and here is the recipe.

Nei Appam Recipe - Ingredients
Recipe Reference : Shanthis thaligai

• Raw rice - 1 cup
• Jaggery - 3/4 cup
• Rice Flour - 1 tbsp (optional)
• Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
• Elachi powder - a generous pinch
• Banana - 1 small sized
• Coconut grated - 1 tbsp (optional)
• Melted Ghee / Oil - for deep frying

Method:

Soak rice in water for atleast 3 hours. Drain water and grind rice with very little water to a fine paste.

Mix jaggery with water and heat it up for few mins until it is slightly thick(no consistency needs to be checked).Strain the syrup to remove impurities, collect it in a bowl.

Now add this jaggery syrup to the rice paste. After jaggery is added, if it becomes too watery just add 1 tbsp rice flour to make a thick consistency.The consistency should be slightly thicker than the dosa batter.Add banana, elachi powder, coconut,baking soda and mix well. 

If you dont want to add baking soda skip it and Set the batter aside for another 2 hours for fermentation.

Then heat paniyaram pan , add a tsp of ghee / oil in each hole. Pour a spoon full of the batter in each hole.When cooked on one side , carefully flip to other side - add oil / ghee if required.Cook until both sides are dark brown.You can even deep fry them fully by adding ghee/oil to 3/4th of each hole.

The soaking time is more so I soaked rice morning and this was ready for snack time. The aroma of ghee with the appams is special about this neiappams.

My Notes :

• If you dont have paniyaram pan then you can deep fry them by pouring a spoon full of the batter in heated oil and deep fry them until golden brown.
• If the batter is too runny then it will drink more oil so adjust accordingly.
• You can also use half oil and half ghee to fry the appams.
• With jaggery and as its deep fried it will have a deep drak brown color.