Savory Paniyaram.

A few weeks ago I was surfing the net, when I came across a video for making these little savory and sweet mini doughnut type of creations.I was so impressed with them that I searched the net for more info and discovered that these little creations came under many different names such as appam/uniappam/kuzhi appam/paniyaram and in the western world aebleskiver.I am still unsure what the correct name for these are but will settle for Paniyarams for now.

I found many recipes to entice and tempt me but getting appam pan was the true test.After much searching in the UK I tried america and India but could not find anyone to ship out to me.Finally luck was in hand , I found Popat stores in UK had one and I am now a proud owner of an appam pan.

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Paniyaram-Mini balls made from batter flavoured with herbs and spices cooked in a special Appam Pan.

Ingredients:

Basic Paniyaram batter:

1/2 cup Rice Flour

1/2 cup fine semolina(sooji/rava)

1/4 cup all purpose flour (maida)

1/4 cup wheat flour

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon fresh ginger paste

1/2 teaspoon eno salts

2 green chillies finely chopped

1/4 cup curd (natural yoghurt)

1.5 cups water

1 tablespoon sunflower oil for seasoning and cooking paniyarams.

For Fenugreek ( Methi) Paniyarams:

1 table spoon fresh chopped fenugreek(methi)

For Tomato and spring onion Paniyarams:

1 small tomato de seeded and finely chopped

1 spring onion finely chopped

Method:

1. Mix all the basic batter ingredients except the oil and make a dropping consistency batter.

2. Leave batter aside for half hour.

3. Divide the batter into two parts , to one part add the chopped fenugreek and the second part add the spring onions and chopped tomato.

4. Dip a piece of kitchen paper in oil and dab the appam pan to season it.

5. Put 1-2 drops of oil in each hole and heat on medium heat.

6. Starting with the fenugreek batter pour batter into the appam pan 3/4 full in each hole

7. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until batter begins to puff up and set on the underside turning golden brown.

8. Next using a wooden skewer flip the paniyaram over so that the browned underside side is uppermost and uncooked top side is under neath.Cook this side till golden brown too.Paniyarams are ready when a skewer poked in the middle comes out clean and they are puffed up golden brown and spongy.

9.Repeat for remaining fenugreek batter and again repeat for the tomato and spring onion batter.