I had a reply from Malayalees in every continent about the Thai sweet which we also make in Kerala, India. The fastest came from a Mallu in Helsinki, Mathew, even before I went to bed last night.
Thanks Mathew, I slept in peace.
The name of the sweet is Achappam.
When I looked through the recipe books by Mrs. K. M. Mathew, I found it in all the three editions of her book called Kerala Cookery, also known as Nandan Pachakarama (1st edition in 1985, 2nd edition in 1986 and the 3rd edition in 1992) and also in her "The Family Cook Book" published in 1987.
The recipe and method of making Achappam is described below:
ACHAPPAM Ingredients:
1/2 kg fine raw rice flour
2 cups grated coconut
2 eggs
2 dsp sugar
2 tsp gingelly seeds (sesame seeds)
a little salt
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
Oil for frying.
Method:
1. Extract the milk from the grated coconut and mix the maida (fine raw rice flour) with it.
2. Whisk the eggs stiff and add the batter with the sugar, gingelly seeds, essence and salt. Use less sugar as otherwise the batter will stick to the sides of the mould.
3. Take a small portion of the batter in a small vessel. Put the ACHAPPAM mould in very hot oil kept on the fire.
4. Dip 3/4 of the mould into the batter when the mould is very hot and then dip into the hot oil. The achappam will fall off into the oil by itself. Turn it over. When fried, drain the oil by putting the achappam on paper. When cool store in bottles.
Now-a-days things are much easier in that ready coconut milk is available from a tin and you can buy the fine rice flour from the shops. But there is a great deal of skill in making it exactly to my taste, just as my aunt did! ;-)
However, no one has provided an explanation of why Thai Cooking Culture is so close to the Kerala Cooking Culture.
Ethnically we are very different - but somewhere the lines of culture have crossed. In which direction? I am fascinated by this discovery, as in Oulu, with Annikki so preoccupied, to enjoy a taste of near Kerala style spicy food, I have to go to The Pailin Thai Restaurant!
Rice, Green Curry, Red Curry, .......
I finished the last of the "achappams" already before going to bed last night.
They are in my tum!
5 comments:
I remember some time back in the US having a Thai Chicken Curry ( I dont remember the name) which was so close to the mallu style.... Not sure whether the Chef was a mallu or not... ;-)
Was it Red Curry or Green Curry. Both are extremely spiced. Necause they use coconut milk, it appears mild.
The Thais usually add chilli in fish sauce to spice it up even more!
They maily use the Khandari chilli (also known as the erect chilli) which is probably one of the most spiced of the chillies!
it was neither green nor red. It was somewhere near to brown or biege. I dont know what is the exact name of the colour.....
The colour is not the colour of the curry. It represents the colour of the chillies they use and then the colour of the vegeatbles they use in the curry. For instance in green curry they use mainly green paprika and in red curry, red paprika. The colour of the curry is dominated by the coconut milk, so as you correctly said, it is greyish brown! In Kerala curries the coconut milk is less dominating and our curries are more coloured towards the fresh spices used in the curry.
wow!! what a beautiful achappam:)
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