Crispy Paniyaram - South Indian Cooking Recipes

The paniyaram is a south indian dish made by steaming idli/dosa batter along with some spices/lentils. A special vessel with 7 holes in it called paniyaram chatti is used to prepare this. This can be had for breakfast or as an evening snack.

It can be made either as sweet or savory. One evening i wanted to make some filling snack for the kids after their school and hardly any ingredients were available and suddenly i realized the left over idly batter in the fridge, my first thought came to quickly convert it to this kuzhi paniyaram . Kuzhi basically means a depth and since this is made in the tava that has little depths, the name came to be Kuzhi Paniyaram.

Ingredients
Idli Batter – As required
Onions(big) – 2 (chopped)
Green chillies – 4 or less
Ginger – 1 big piece
Asafoetida (Kayam) powder – A pinch
Mustard seeds
Dry red chillies- 4
Bengal gram (Kadalaparippu) – 1 tbsp
Split black gram (Uzhunnuparippu) – 1 tsp
Raw rice – 2 tbsp
Curry leaves
Oil
Salt – As required

Instuctions:

Soak raw rice for about half an hour and grind it with ginger and green chillies.

Pour mixture into idli batter.

Heat oil in a pan or a kadai.

Splutter mustard seeds followed by black gram and Bengal gram and slighty fry.

Add the red chillies, onions and curry leaves, a pinch of asafoetida powder and fry till golden brown.

Add salt as per taste.

When the onions look nice and crispy brown, take it off fire and add the mixture in to the batter and mix all the ingredients well.

Heat oil in the Paniyaram pan and pour the batter in each depth.

Slowly pour the prepared paniyaram batter but take care that it contains itself inside the depths

When one side is done, turn over the paniyarams to the other side using the help of a spoon or  a knife.

Hot Crispy Paniyarams will be ready in no time. Serve hot with coconut chutney.