South Indian Delicacy: Aappam and Coconut-Onion Chutney

Aappam/Appam as we call in Kerala, is one of my favorite breakfast dishes. Atleast once in a month, i prepare appam for breakfast. 

Appam and stew is a traditional breakfast of Kerala. In different regions of Kerala, it is prepared differently. Here is a recipe for Appam, my version, prepared from scratch. It may not be an authentic recipe but it will result in frilly, delicious appams. We can have appams with stew, either mixed vegetable or just potato stew or a simple side dish, coconut chutney. I will post the recipe for Potato stew which is my family's favorite in my next recipe blog. Now, here is my recipe for tasty appams and coconut-onion chutney (a different version of normal coconut chutney).

Ingredients for Appam:

4 cups Raw Rice
1 cup milk
1/2 cup coconut grated
1 cup Rava
1 cup coconut water
1 cup cooked rice
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp 
Sugar
Salt

Preparation of Appam batter:

Soak the raw rice for 3-4 hours in water.
Add cooked rice, coconut, coconut water and milk to the the rice and grind it to a smooth batter. 
Make a semi-solid batter with rava by cooking rava in water for 3 minutes. 

Add the Rava batter to the rice while grinding it with other ingredients.
The batter should be a pouring consistency and a little thinner than dosa batter.
Add baking soda, sugar and salt to the batter and mix well.

                                  

 Preparation of Appam:

Pour a ladle full of batter in a hot skillet or appam pan and swirl it immediately. A thin layer of the batter sticks to the sides of the pan and a small pool of batter in the middle.

                                 

Cover with a lid and cook on low flame till the center of the appam is cooked and the bottom side of appam turns to lightly brown in color. 
Once the border starts getting detached from the pan, your appam is ready to serve.

                                            

Now, as we have prepared the tasty, crisp appams, we need to have a side dish. The easiest side dish you can prepare for appams is chutney. So, here is a recipe for spicy coconut-onion chutney.

Ingredients for Coconut-Onion chutney:

1/2 cup Coconut grated
1 Onion
4 dry red chillies (big) 
1 tspn garlic chopped
1 tspn black gram/Urad dal

1 tbspn Tamarind
curry leaves
Salt

Preparation: 

Add oil in a pan and add garlic and black gram and fry it for 2 minutes.
Mix chopped onion to the pan and stir it for 5 more minutes.
Add coconut and mix it together and fry till it becomes light brown in color.
Now, add the red chillies, curry  leaves and let it fry for few more minutes. 
Keep aside the coconut mixture to cool off. Once cooled, blend it together with tamarind in
a mixer with a little water and required salt.
The chutney is ready to be served. Serve it with hot Appams.