Solai's True Chettinad kitchen

No chettinad recipe pages will be complete without a note for its traditional delicacy”Vellai paniyaram”.Even if one doesn’t find time to make it themselves, should at least taste it in the traditional chettinad restaurants mushrooming in almost all big cities and towns.Vellai paniyaram will have its place in all the chettiar functions big or small. Though the ingredients will show it very simple, much depends on the way it is prepared. Much care should be taken while preparing. When I was new to the kitchen doing this was a nightmare for me. Now with experience, I have mastered all the tricks of making a perfect Paniyaram. With the help of modern networking technology, I am happy that I can share the tricks with the newcomers in correcting the small mistakes which will come in the beginning. Care should be taken right from the selection of rice. I remember during weddings, a month before itself the old people at home will be buying small quantity of different rice and checking which rice comes good in making paniyarams .But now we don’t find time and energy to do all those things., so I am discovering techniques to correct it even if the rice is not the most appropriate one. In this blog, I will give a note about it. Going through all my stories of the difficulties, don’t be afraid of making an attempt , since the taste of the paniyaram is worth all the trouble in the world. Sometimes you may be lucky enough to get it perfect in the first trial itself.

Ingredients
Raw rice-1 cup (usually small fat rice little cheaper one is good)
Urudh dhal -1/4 cup(usually in chettinad we will take rice to the rim level of uzhakku or measuring cup and then fill urudh dhal to the heap level of the uzhakku(.I have found urudh dhal to be little less than ¼ cup in that case)
Soak both together for 1 hour and grind it to a very smooth paste. Add the required amount of salt while grinding itself.
Consistency of the batter can be little more watery than dosa batter. To make it watery use little milk
Keep a medium size little bit flat tawa in the stove .Pour 1 ½ cups of oil. Keep the flame in medium. Make sure that at no stage the oil gets overheated. When the oil is hot using a medium sized spoon(little bigger than a table spoon) pour one spoon batter into the oil, the paniyaram will immediately rise now with the help of the laddle used to take the paniyaram out, pour the heated oil in the tawa on the top of the paniyaram.This will help the paniyaram to get a flowery border. Within a minute turn it upside down allow it to cook for 1 more minute and remove it from oil.

Allow the paniyaram to cool and now break the paniyaram and see that it is cooked inside also.
If not cook the next one little more.But the paniyaram should never be roasted.

Sometimes the paniyaram will rise like a ball, and then the problem will be either the oil is too hot or your batter is too thick. If you feel it is too thick pour little milk to make it watery.

Sometimes u may feel that the paniyaram drinks oil then the mistake is that u have added too much urudh dhal or your urud dhal is very good in quality. In that case you can add little idly batter, or rice flour.
If you still find any difficulty feel free to leave a comment

Vellai paniyaram will be very tasty with thakkali thuvayal or milagai chutney.

I will come to that section of cookery from my next blog

This is a traditional Chettinad snack item which will have its place on almost all important festival or pooja days. Being little bit sweet, it will be a real treat for sweet lovers

Ingredients
Raw rice-1 cup
Par boiled rice (idly rice)-1 cup
Urudh dhal- 1/4 cup
Peeled broken green dhal-1 table spoon
Thoor dhal-1 table spoon
Bengal gram-1 table spoon
Jaggery -1 ½ cup
Grated coconut-(1/2 cocunut)
Elachi (yelakkai) -6


Procedure

Soak the rice and dhal for 1 hour. Put it in the grinder and grind for 10 minutes. Now add the grated coconut and grind to a smooth paste. Finally add the jaggery and the powdered elachi and grind till the jaggery nicely mixes.

The batter should be in the consistency of dosa batter. Keep the kadai in the stove .Pour the required amount of oil. Once the oil gets heated, keep the flame in sim and using a small spatula, slowly pour 1 spatulla of batter into the oil and wait for a second when the appam raises slowly pour the heated oil on top of the appam 2 or 3 times with the help of a spoon. This will enable the appam to be cooked fast and also to get a curled border (we usually call it as ‘karai katturathu’ in Tamil).Then turn the side, wait for a minute and remove from the kadai.It will not take much time to cook. So don’t wait till it turn brown.

In Chettinad menu, Masalacheeyam will take the place of ulundu vadai in the evening tiffin or dinner.A very tasty and safe item, since it will not cause any problem even if the dough is little loose. In my early cooking days whenever I have to make vadai, I will attempt only this. We can change the dough to the required consistency without doing any damage to the taste. So this will be a blessing in disguise for those who find it difficult to grind the vada dough to the correct consistency or make them in correct shape. Moreover it will neither become very oily nor very tough unless the dough is very watery.

Ingredients
Par boiled rice (idly rice) - 1 ½ cup
Red chillie-6
Curry leaf
Urudh dhal-1teaspoon
Mustard seed-1 teaspoon
Bengal gram-1 teaspoon
Oil-2 table spoons
Grated coconut-2 tablespoons

Procedure
Soak the rice for 1 hour. Put it in the mixie with the salt needed and grind for 2 minutes.
Add 1 cup of water to the grinded batter.
Keep the kadai in the stove. pour the oil ,when it gets heated add the mustard seed and allow it to crack then add the urudh dhal, curry leaf and Bengal gram .When the dhal gets roasted add the grated cocunut stir for a minute, then pour the batter into the kadai and go on stirring. Switch off the stove when it becomes thick to the consistency that you can make balls out of it. Allow the batter to cool for 2 or 3 minutes. Then make kozhukattai’s of the desired shape .Steam the kozhukattai’s in the idly pot for 5 minutes. This kozhukattai can be eaten without any side dish. But if you can find time then you can prepare Tomato chutney or coconut chutney. It will taste yummy in that combination.