Nei Appam

Happy Karthigai Deepam to you all!
Karthigai deepam is celebrated all over Tamilnadu on the full moon day of Krithika star in the Tamil month of Krithigai....Today is the day when Lord Shiva appeared in the form of a huge jyothi taking a mountain form at Tiruvanamalai...it is also the day when Goddess Parvathi united the six forms of Lord Muruga into one with six faces and hence is very auspicious for Lord Muruga.
The traditional neivediyam for this includes pori urundai, appam, paal payasam, etc.....For this karthigai Deepam, I decided to make Nei appam which I learnt from my MIL recently .....so here goes the recipe
Ingredients:
Raw rice - 1 cup soaked in water for about an hour and a half
Jaggery-3/4 cup
Banana- 1
cardamom powder-1 tsp
Baking soda- 1 tsp
coconut- 1 tsp
Ghee & oil for deep frying
Method:
Grind the soaked rice with very very little water to a thick batter.Then add the jaggery, banana & coconut and grind it to a smooth thick batter.
then mix in the cardamom powder, a tsp of ghee & baking soda. Since we are adding baking soda we need not wait for this batter to ferment. fill the holes in the paniyaram pan with oil + a drop of ghee in each.Now take a ladle full of batter and pour into the paniyaram pan.
Flip to the other side and cook till both sides are brown.

Yummy soft Nei appams are ready....


Note: I have used only 1-2 drops of ghee while deep frying and the rest is canola oil for health reasons...I can't bring myself to deep fry it all in ghee entirely..but it tasted equally good.

This is my submission for the EFM-Sweet event conducted by Srilekha.