Appam - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Appam, Aappam hoppers, are a type of food in Kerala

Cuisine of Kerala

The cuisine of Kerala is linked in all its richness to the history, geography, demography and culture of the land. Kerala cuisine has a multitude of both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes prepared using fish, poultry and meat.-Ingredients:...

, Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...

and Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

n cuisine

Cuisine

Cuisine is a characteristic style of cooking practices and traditions, often associated with a specific culture. Cuisines are often named after the geographic areas or regions that they originate from...

. It is called chitau (ଚିତାଉ) Pitha

Pitha

Pitha , or pithe is a type of cake or bread common in Bangladesh and India, especially the eastern states of Assam, Orissa, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and the northeastern region. Pithas are typically made of rice flour, although there are some types of pitha made of wheat flour...

in Oriya

Oriya language

Oriya , officially Odia from November, 2011, is an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. It is mainly spoken in the Indian states of Orissa and West Bengal...

, Paddu or Gulle Eriyappa in Kodava

Kodava

The Kodavas are a patrilineal ethno-lingual group from the region of Kodagu, in Karnataka state of southern India who traditionally were land-owning agriculturists with martial traditions and natively speak Kodava takk...

. It is known as ආප්ප (Appa) in Sinhala. It is eaten most frequently for breakfast

Breakfast

Breakfast is the first meal taken after rising from a night's sleep, most often eaten in the early morning before undertaking the day's work...

or dinner

Dinner

Dinner is usually the name of the main meal of the day. Depending upon culture, dinner may be the second, third or fourth meal of the day. Originally, though, it referred to the first meal of the day, eaten around noon, and is still occasionally used for a noontime meal, if it is a large or main...

.

Appum or aapum – pronunciation varies between regions – is a term equivalent to bread. Another form of appam is "Kallappam", where "kall" (Malayalam) means toddy

Palm wine

Palm wine also called Palm Toddy also called "Kallu" written in Malayalam and கள்ளு in Tamil or simply Toddy is an alcoholic beverage created from the sap of various species of palm tree such as the palmyra, and coconut palms...

, which is used for fermentation. This type of appam is prepared in an appa kal (mould). Kallappam looks like a pancake.

Origin

According to Gil Marks

Gil Marks

Gil Marks is a food writer and historian who has published five cookbooks on the subject of Jewish food, and was the founding editor of Kosher Gourmet magazine.-Education:...

from his famous book Encyclopedia of Jewish Food (Wiley, 2010), "Each of the three separate Indian Jewish communities - Cochin, Mumbai, Calcutta - counts in its culinary repertoire grain dishes called appam." - Gil Marks, Encyclopedia of Jewish Food (Wiley, 2010) The dish, akin to dosa

Dosa

Dosa or Dhosai is a fermented crepe or pancake made from rice batter and black lentils. It is indigenous to and is a staple dish in the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, as well as being popular in Sri Lanka...

, is made from the batter of ground soaked rice, coconut milk. A little kall which means toddy

Toddy

Toddy may be:* Hot toddy, a mixed drink served hot* Palm wine, also known as palm toddy, an alcoholic beverage.* The toddy palm...

in Malayalam is used for fermentation. This is otherwise known as Kallappam.

Appam is either derived from the sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

word apupa (rice cake) or Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

word appa (appam, plural).
Appam especially Neyyappam offered to Hindu deities, found in various old Tamil

Tamil language

literatures and texts. . In a 15th century anthology of Tamil

Tamil language

religious songs Tiruppugazh, appam offered to Vinayagar (Lord Ganesh), written by Arunagirinathar

Arunagirinathar

Arunagirinathar was Tamil poet who lived during the 15th century in Tamil Nadu, India. He was the creator of Tiruppugazh, a book of poems in Tamil in praise of the Hindu God Murugan. He was a member of the Isai Vellalar community....

, a Tamil

Tamil people

Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...

poet.

Variations

Plain hoppers (Vella Appam)

bowl-shaped thin pancakes made from fermented rice flour. They derive their shape from the small Appachatti in which they are cooked. They are fairly neutral in taste and mostly served with some spicy condiment or curry. These hoppers are made from a batter using rice, yeast

Yeast

Yeasts are eukaryotic micro-organisms classified in the kingdom Fungi, with 1,500 species currently described estimated to be only 1% of all fungal species. Most reproduce asexually by mitosis, and many do so by an asymmetric division process called budding...

, salt and a little sugar

Sugar

Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...

. After the mixture has stood for a couple of hours, it can be fried

Frying

Frying is the cooking of food in oil or another fat, a technique that originated in ancient Egypt around 2500 BC. Chemically, oils and fats are the same, differing only in melting point, but the distinction is only made when needed. In commerce, many fats are called oils by custom, e.g...

in the appachatti with a little oil

Oil

An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....

. In south-central Kerala, it is mostly served with Kadala (Chickpea

Chickpea

The chickpea is a legume of the family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae...

) curry

Curry

Curry is a generic description used throughout Western culture to describe a variety of dishes from Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Thai or other Southeast Asian cuisines...

mutton or vegetable stew

Stew

A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables , meat, especially tougher meats suitable for slow-cooking, such as beef. Poultry, sausages, and seafood are also used...

or egg roast

Egg roast

Egg roast is a dish native to Kerala, India, consisting of eggs roasted in a masala gravy. It is commonly consumed as an accompaniment mainly with appam and puttu or less often with chapattis or porotas or it is also used with steamed rice....

Egg hoppers

the same as plain hoppers, but an egg

Egg (food)

Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...

is broken into the pancake as it cooks

Milk hoppers

have a spoonful of thick coconut milk/coconut cream added to the doughy centre. When cooked, the centre is firm to the touch but remains soft inside and is sweeter as a result of the coconut milk.

Honey
Honey
Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...

hoppers

crispy pancakes cooked with a generous amount of palm treacle

Treacle

Treacle is any syrup made during the refining of sugar and is defined as "uncrystallized syrup produced in refining sugar". Treacle is used chiefly in cooking as a form of sweetener or condiment....

. Some people also like to add some jaggery

Jaggery

Jaggery is a traditional unrefined non-centrifugal whole cane sugar consumed in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. It is a concentrated product of cane juice without separation of the molasses and crystals, and can vary from golden brown to dark brown in color...

just before serving to make it extra sweet.

String hopper (Noolputtu)

Or idiyappam
Idiyappam
Idiyappam is a culinary specialty in Tamilnadu, Kerala and Coastal areas of Karnataka. It is also popular in certain areas of Sri Lanka...

, is made from rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

noodles curled into flat spirals. It is served for breakfast with a thin fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

or chicken

Chicken

The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...

curry

Curry

Curry is a generic description used throughout Western culture to describe a variety of dishes from Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Thai or other Southeast Asian cuisines...

, containing only one or two pieces of meat, a dhal (lentil

Lentil

The lentil is an edible pulse. It is a bushy annual plant of the legume family, grown for its lens-shaped seeds...

) dish, and a spicy sambol or fresh chutney

Chutney

Chutney is a a condiment used in South Asian cuisine that usually contains a spice and vegetable mix.Chutneys are wet or dry, having a coarse to fine texture. The Anglo-Indian loan word refers to fresh and pickled preparations indiscriminately, with preserves often sweetened. At least several...

. String hoppers are made from steamed rice flour

Flour

Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...

made into a dough with water and a little salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

, and forced through a mould similar to those used for pasta

Pasta

Pasta is a staple food of traditional Italian cuisine, now of worldwide renown. It takes the form of unleavened dough, made in Italy, mostly of durum wheat , water and sometimes eggs. Pasta comes in a variety of different shapes that serve for both decoration and to act as a carrier for the...

to make the strings. They are cooked by steaming. These hoppers can be bought ready-made. The Indian and Sri Lankan population eats String Hoppers for breakfast or dinner. There are many variations to this, depending on the type of flour used etc. This simple dish can be adapted into other foods such as String Hopper Biriyani, by adding scrambled eggs or vegetables. Another example is located in Kerala, 'Idiyappam' Paaya(Goat Leg Soup made using Coconut).

Pesaha appam
Inri appam
Inri appam, also known as pesaha appam, is a type of unleavened Easter bread. It is made on Maundy Thursday by the Nasrani Christians from Kerala, India. Although other types of appam are made from fermented batter, INRI appam can be made from batter that is fermented for a relatively short period...

(also called INRI appam or indri appam) is made by Christians in Kerala during Passover. This type of appam is dipped in syrup before being served.

Neyyappam
Neyyappam
Neyyappam is a south Indian speciality common in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. These are rice pancakes fried in Ghee. A batter of pouring consistency is made of rice flour and jaggery. Cardamom and dried ginger are added for flavour. Neyyappam is derived from "Neyy" which means Ghee and "appam", pancake....

which owes its origins to Kerala. This is made with rice flour, jaggery

Jaggery

, clarified butter ghee

Ghee

Ghee is a class of clarified butter that originated in South Asia and is commonly used in South Asian cuisine....

. Unni appam

Unni Appam

Unni appam is a small round sweet rice cake made from rice, Jaggery, plantain, Ghee and other ingredients. It is a popular snack in Kerala and is a main offering to Lord Ganapathi. In Malayalam, unni means small and 'appam means rice cake....

is a variation in which mashed plantain

Plantain

Plantain is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa. The fruit they produce is generally used for cooking, in contrast to the soft, sweet banana...

is added to the batter. The batter made out of rice flour, jaggery and plantain is poured into a vessel called Appakarai or Appakaram, which has ghee heated to a high temperature. The appams take the shape of small cups, and are fried until deep brown. Both neyyappam and unni appam are eaten as snacks. This is festive sweet, made on Gokulashtami - the birthday of Hindu

Hindu

Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

deity, Krishna

Krishna

Krishna is a central figure of Hinduism and is traditionally attributed the authorship of the Bhagavad Gita. He is the supreme Being and considered in some monotheistic traditions as an Avatar of Vishnu...

. It is also a common prasadam in Kerala temples.

Vattayappam

is made from rice flour, sugar, and coconut. The dish is made by steam-cooking the batter, and is very similar to the Bánh bò

Bánh bò

Bánh bò is a sweet, chewy sponge cake from Vietnam. It is made from rice flour, water, sugar, and yeast, and has a honeycomb-like appearance on the inside due to the presence of numerous small air bubbles. Coconut milk is also usually a part of the batter, imparting a slight flavor and aroma of...

from Vietnam.

The presence of Tamils in Malaysia has over the years led to the popularity of the apam. Apam is the term used for a steamed cup-cake sized dessert made from rice flour that is eatened with shredded fresh coconut. The string hopper (local name: putu mayam

Putu Mayam

Iddiyappam;இடியாப்ப‌ம் or 'Putu mayam' in Malay is a Tamil dish. It is popular in southern India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore....

) is also popular among Malaysians. Sold by street vendors on modified motorbikes, the string hoppers are eaten with grated palm sugar (gula Melaka) and shredded fresh coconut. Malaysian Indians tend to make their own and eat it with either curry or dhal dish.

External links

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