Vellai Appam
Vellai Appam is a traditional deep fried snack especially made during Deepavali in many households in Tamil Nadu. This delicacy is made using rice and urad dal and is wonderfully crisp and delicious. This is a must have breakfast dish in many places like Madurai, Thanjavur and Tirunelveli on the festival occasion of Deepavali.
This dish is so integral to our Deepavali celebration that I cannot imagine kick starting the festival day without this snack. Deepavali celebration begins quite early in the morning in Tamil Nadu and everyone typically wakes up around 4 AM (yes heard it right!), and have ganga snanam (oil bath), and burst crackers. The celebration kicks off with the lighting of the loud and thunderous ‘Sara vedi’ or ‘Lari’ as called in Hindi. Since you wake up this early, you feel quite hungry and breakfast on the day of Deepavali is a special fare.
Breakfast in many households, especially the central and southern part of Tamil Nadu is pretty staple – Idli, coconut chutney, assorted bajji, a sweet and the star dish – Vellai Appam! Vellai Appam unlike any other vada or bonda is super crispy from the outside and soft and fluffy inside. Typically the proportion of rice is twice as that of urad dal, and this ratio is what yields a wonderful crisp texture for Vellai Appam.
While this is a pretty popular dish in many southern districts of Tamil Nadu, it is a pretty unheard dish in the northern part of Tamil Nadu. My wife is from Chennai, and for our first Deepavali post marriage (which I remember was in the UK), when I said we have to make Vellai Appam for Deepavali, she was clueless! But for those who have not tasted this dish, they would definitely go for some extra servings when they taste this for the first time. Trust me these crisp golden balls are super hard to resist, and I always end up over eating these on Deepavali mornings 🙂
Vellai Appam is a fairly simple dish to cook. Unlike Medu Vada, there is no complexity of getting the perfect consistency for urad dal batter and again the dreadful task of getting the perfect hole in Vada! The best part about this dish is that no matter how hard you try, you would never get a perfect round shape and that is perfectly acceptable. In fact the slightly uneven shape makes this snack even more crispy.
The recipe for this dish is pretty straight forward. Rice and urad dal needs to be soaked for 4-5 hours and ground separately. We then add a tempering of mustard seeds and urad dal, along with finely chopped green chillies, curry leaves, ginger, green chillies, coconut pieces and roughly crushed back pepper. We also add a small amount of curd which makes it slightly sour.
Here are some tips and tricks to get perfect Vellai Appam!
- Ratio of Rice: Urad Dal should be 2:1. Do not try to use Idli batter directly for this dish, as it would typically absorb more oil since it has less urad dal.
- Urad dal must be ground separately to a fluffy batter. Use 1 or 2 ice cubes while grinding urad dal, this will avoid heating of the batter.
- Rice must be ground coarse, in texture of Rava. This gives Vellai Appam a nice crisp texture.
- Ensure that the batter is thick and add minimal water while grinding. If the batter is runny, Vellai Appam will absorb more oil while cooking.
- Typically this batter is fermented overnight just like Idli/ Dosa batter. But if you are in hurry, let it rest for at least couple of hours, and add 2 tablespoons of curd before frying.
- Addition of small amount of curd gives it slight sourness, and balances well with the heat from pepper, ginger and green chillies.
- Fry Vellai Appam in medium heat. This will yield a uniform colour and it will be cooked through inside.
Vellai Appam
Ingredients
- 1 cup Raw Rice
- 0.5 cup Whole Urad Dal
- 2 tbsp Curd
- 1 inch Ginger finely chopped
- 7-8 Black Peppercorn roughly pound
- 2 tbsp finely chopped Coconut pieces
- 1-2 Green Chillies finely chopped
- 2 sprigs Curry Leaves finely chopped
- Coriander Leaves finely chopped
- 1/4 tsp Asafoetida or Hing
- 1 tsp Mustard Seeds for tempering
- 1 tsp Split Urad Dal for tempering
- Oil for deep-frying and tempering
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Soak raw rice and whole urad dal separately for 4-5 hours.
- Drain water from soaked urad dal and grind with one or two ice cubes to a fine and fluffy batter.
- Drain water from soaked rice. Grind rice with minimal water to a coarse paste (Rava or sooji like consistency)
- Mix both the batter. Add salt on top (don't mix the salt). Let this batter ferment overnight or for 6 to 8 hours.
- Mix the batter well once it is fermented.
- In a small frying pan, heat 2 teaspoon oil and prepare a tempering of mustard seeds and split urad dal.
- Add this tempering to the batter. Add curd, asafoetida, finely chopped green chillies, roughly pound black pepper, finely chopped ginger, curry leaves, coriander and finely chopped coconut pieces.
- Mix the batter well. Do not add water. The batter should be thick, however should be able to pour from a spoon.
- Heat oil in a kadai. Using a small round ladle or spoon, pour the vellai appam in hot oil.
- Fry vellai appam on medium heat. Flip over once it gets golden from the sides.
- Once vellai appam is golden in colour, drain them onto a paper towel. Serve hot with coconut chutney.
Notes
- Grind rice to a coarse consistency to yield crisp Vellai Appam
- Ensure that the batter is not thin, as excess water would make vellai appam to absorb more oil
- Ferment the batter for best results. If in a hurry, let it rest for at least 2 hours and add curd.
- Fry vellai appam in medium heat to get uniform golden colour.
If you liked this recipe or have tried it, please comment and share this recipe with your friends and family using the below options.