ingredients
- Raw rice : 1/2Kg,
- Boiled rice : 1 medium spoon
- Baking soda : 1/4tsp,
- Salt : 1/4tsp
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Today I will share one of the best traditional breakfast recipe of Kerala – “appam / Velleappam”. This is basically steam cakes made from raw rice. This batter is prepared without using any yeast for fermentation. If you are looking for palappam recipe with yeast, you can read our other post on making of palappam.
Appam can be served with Chicken roast / egg curry / Bengal gram curry /Green gram curry / Sardine curry. Vegetarians can serve appam with vegetable stew or any vegetable curry. Use raw rice (pachari) if possible. To get soft and fluffy appam use a separate “appachatti”, exclusively for appam making.
Preparation of the appam batter
- Soak the rice for about 6-8 hours in water.
- Wash the rice three to four times and drain thoroughly.
- Grind the raw rice and the boiled rice together to a fine paste.
- Add baking soda.
- Keep it for 6-8 hours.
- Add salt to the mixture and keep it for one more hour.
- Heat kadhai (“appachatti”), smear little coconut oil on it.
- Pour one spoon full of batter in the pan and rotate the pan in circular manner to get the circular shape of appam.
- Put a tight lid on it and within three minutes appam is ready to have!!
- Serve it hot with Chicken roast / egg curry / Bengal gram curry / Sardine curry.
Tips
- It will be easier to grind raw rice if you add the boiled rice first.
- Keep three spoon of batter for the next day. Add it to the mixture to grind (Step 3) next day preparation and it will make the appam more soft. The same can be kept in refrigerator if you are not preparing more appams next day.
I am Dr. Cini P Moideen, a doc by profession. With my sister I photograph and share favorite recipes from our kitchen. I write less frequently because of my studies, but when ever I am free, I tries to come up with a good recipe. Bingo :)
March 19, 2013 at 2:54 pm
Hi,
Shouldn’t we be adding yeast typically to make appam?
March 19, 2013 at 3:06 pm
Hi Sindhu,
You can also use yeast instead of baking soda for the batter preparation.
July 5, 2013 at 8:28 am
My next try!!! Will b posting soon with a feedback, Cini 🙂
August 1, 2013 at 7:46 pm
Hi
I did’nt get the 2nd point of your tip for the soft yummy appam
Anu
August 1, 2013 at 11:07 pm
@Anu : the logic is simple. Suppose if you are preparing appams for two consecutive days, keep a little of the first days batter for the second day too. Mix this batter together along with the rice you are grinding for the second day.
November 20, 2013 at 4:13 pm
Hi, We make appams at home once in a while for breakfast. I prepare the batter with rice, coconut, yeast and a little cooked rice.
Grind everything together with coconut water(if available) and keep it overnight. When you rotate the pan in a circular manner, some extra batter has to be there in the centre of the pan. Thank you
November 20, 2013 at 4:21 pm
Thanks for the addition Nimmy. Can you clarify whether we use coconut water or coconut milk? My mom uses thick coconut milk for preparing Palappams. Will get recipe from her for it.
November 21, 2013 at 2:42 pm
It is coconut water for grinding. Thank you
November 21, 2013 at 2:47 pm
Thanks for the confirmation Nimmi. I haven’t tried it before. Will try it soon..v:)
December 4, 2014 at 10:32 am
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October 25, 2015 at 2:53 pm
Hi Cini
Thanks for the appam recipe. Is the rice ground in mixie or a wet grinder? What do you mean by “It will be easier to grind raw rice if you add the boiled rice first” Please explain. Thanks, Anil
November 23, 2015 at 5:41 pm
@Anil Kondath : At home we use a mixer for grinding.
July 10, 2017 at 1:23 pm
Traditionally appam was made with fresh kallu (toddy) in our Pala side.fresh toddy(mostly panankallu) give appam the ultimate taste.we grind soaked rice to a very smooth batter in little kallu and water..also can grind grated fresh coconut along with the rice.finally we add grinded cooked rice and little sugar and salt to the rice batter. Mix it well and keep it over night for fermentation..morning we get well fermented batter with lots of lather.instead of cooked rice my granny used to take a little rice batter and make it a thick paste like by keeping it on the stove in a thick bottomed vessel and continually stirring it.when it’s cooled down this paste will be added to the rice batter.
August 4, 2017 at 10:04 pm
Thanks Teena for this nice explanation and tips 🙂
November 2, 2017 at 9:24 pm
Hi Cini,
Thanxs for this recipe. I have 1 doubt, what is cooked rice.
Sherly
October 7, 2019 at 10:15 pm
What did u mean by boiled rice?
January 17, 2020 at 7:00 am
Hi Maria, Its normal cooked rice.