Neyyappam ~ Vishu special

Wishing you all a very Happy Vishu!

Vishu - Malayalis newyear - is here. What have you been up to? Did you put up a Vishukkani? Well, we made Neyyappam here and that was our Vishu special. I did try to hunt for Kanni konna but no luck. As a kid, the main attraction of Vishu used to be crackers, movie series in TV, get together of cousins and ofcourse payasam. This time we had to restrict it to Neyyappams..not bad ehh..

Do you like Neyyappams? I love them. After I had made the batter and let it sit for 2-3 hours, the smell of melted jaggery was so tempting that I wanted to make it as soon as possible. I can't blame myself because it had been sooo long since I had them. Well here is the recipe to it. Hope you like it and try it.

Ingredients

1. 1 small banana
2. 1 cup of raw white rice
3. 1/2 cup of jaggery
4. 1/4 tsp of dry ginger
5. 1/4 tsp of cardamom powder
6. Coconut cut into small and thin chips and fried in ghee
7. Water to soak the rice
8. Oil for deep frying

Method

• Soak the rice in water overnight.
• Wash and drain excess water from the rice. 
• In a saucepan melt the jaggery with just enough water.
• In a grinder, add the banana(cut into small pieces), melted jaggery and rice. Grind it into a paste.
• Remove it into a bowl and add the dry ginger, cardamom powder and coconut chips to it. Mix it well. The batter should be thick in consistency else you could add in some rice flour to adjust the same. Set aside for 2-3 hours.
• Heat the oil. Once hot, scoop out the batter and drop it into the oil. Fry it till it gets dark brown. Serve it hot or store it in a air tight container.

Tips

1. Do not add water while making the batter. You could adjust the consistency by adding melted jaggery or rice flour as required.
2. Making the batter sit for 2-3 hours gives best results.
3. You could choose to add a bit of baking soda too to make it light.