Anjali's Food Kaleidoscope

Paniyaram

What happens when a Punjabi kudi ( those who don't know my age can permit me to write that) , born in Haryana and spent the lifetime in the remotest corners of the country and met people and made friends with people from all regions of India decide to make Paniyaram.

          By now I have justified the name of my blog which to many seems a little difficult to remember , spell or pronounce.

  Kaleidoscope...where in a little juggle of the hands makes the most beautiful and different designs.Well to me my food looks good and it is different , I will let you all be the judge of the taste as you are the one cooking it.

        I tasted "paniyaram"( I didn't know that was the name of this delicious snack )about eight years back when my neighbour sent me some . I remember to this day that we were living in a temporary accomodation ( ignore it if you can't relate to this term , this living in a two room set with the boxes piled up in the verandah and the neighbours being in such close proximity that each time one sneezes one must say excuse me too , is an absolutely fun experience if one has the right attitude for it ) , so as I was saying that my neighbour with whom I would exchange recipes also taught me how to make this , well being a punjabi myself  I have yet to master it but so far this is the way I figured it out.

     I am fortunate to have a lot of friends from the beautiful south of the country and I am sure they will have lots to add to make this recipe better.

   Lets begin with the soaking of one cup of urad dal along with half a teaspoon of fenugreek seeds overnight.

If you do not get the rounded urad dal in your grocery stores like the one in the picture , no sweat the regular split variety  will do.

Then we take about two cups of idli rice in a seperate utensil and soak it too .

 Every one has their own proportion of the rice and dals to be used  , and also the kind of rice  , and trust me they are all correct.

From my limited knowledge and the little experience in this cuisine per say I would say that by far this proportion 

has given me the best results . Now idli rice might not be available every where so the next best option is to use raw rice in the same proportion. We soak them seperately overnight.

 I prefer using steel as much as possible for my cooking etc .Its a personal choice so you would find steel in all shapes and sizes in my pictures.

Usha , also advised me in investing in a grinder...

...The poor guy is a little old now but has been a faithful friend all these years.

   It makes grinding a lot more easier especially if you a re going to make south Indian food often.

So we begin by draining out any extra water from the dal and grinding it in this machine till it becomes light and fluffy. If you are doing it in your mixer it might take a few minutes longer.

We scoop out the batter into the utensil. I must add here that this lady I am talking about would scoop out the batter while the machine would be on and the stones would be rotating and  grinding with such ease and finesse that it seemd the easiest thing to do. I have yet to be able to do it like her. So I stop the machine and with a little bit of twisting and turning of my hands take out the whole batter so that Ican grind my rice along with two tablespoons of poha to a slightly coarse texture. We scoop again and take out the rice and mix it with the dal  batter along with a teaspoon of salt . Let the batter ferment for about eight hours.

This is the regular idli batter , but we are talking Paniyaram here , so lets treat this batter a little more.

Take a little oil , about two tablespoons and put a teaspoon of mustard seeds, let them splitter and splutter a bit and then quieten them down by adding a few curry leaves followed by two very finely chopped "small onions" or shallots being the right technical term for them. Let them pinken a bit and let the "tadka "cool a bit and then add two cups of the dal idli batter and mix well. You could  use the rest of the batter to make the idlis or else treble the quantity of the tempering and add to the batter to make  lots and lots of "Paniyarams".

We  are not going to use the regular idli steamer here...

but the paniyarakkal....

I use the Prestige non stick one though there are heavy duty iron ones available too . You can even buy a slightly larger size if you want to make more in one go. But they turn out good in a matter of a few minutes so for a small family I feel  this set of seven is fine.

So we put about a tablespoon each into the pits and just to make them tastier a little oil too.

Cover them with a lid and in about a minute turn them over with the help of a spoon.

Serve them hot as they taste best that way with coconut chutney.