Idiyappam / Steamed Rice Noodles

By Flagthis -

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I like these best when served with lamb/chicken stew or boiled eggs in coconut gravy. But if you are a thorough vegetarian and don’t do even eggs, then, the best alternative would be to eat these with some Kerala style Kadala Curry  (black chickpeas in coconut gravy).

I also like to make my own rice flour for all kinds of appams. The store bought flour, I find, does not give the texture that the appams need. The process of making rice flour, though popularly believed to be cumbersome, isn’t all that tough in this modern age of high tech kitchen gizmos. It simply calls for – soaking raw rice in water, draining, drying, roasting and eventually grinding it to a smooth powder. If you are the kind who use a lot of rice flour you could make it in bulk and store for later use. However, if making appams are a once-in-a –blue-moon  type of activity for you, then I’d suggest you go for the store bought kind. One recommendation would be to add a little bit of nicely ground grated coconut to the flour to give that missing texture I talked about earlier.

Ingredients
1 cup rice flour
1 cup water
½ cup grated coconut
1 tsp ghee/coconut oil
salt to taste

Directions

  • Mix rice flour with hot water, ghee and salt
  • Knead it into a smooth dough.
  • Make fist size balls and fill it into an idiyappam press.
  • Press it onto a slightly greased  idli pan .
  • Sprinkle a little grated coconut on top of each appam
  • Steam for 5-10 minutes.
  • Serve hot with stew, egg or kadala curry.

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