Kai Pathiri : Rice Pancakes with Coconut, Fennel and Onion

Hi all, This post was supposed to be posted long back, even before I left for India. I was so pressed for time, I just couldn't squeeze in any time to post it on my blog before I left. So here is the post unedited, just as I did it before I left home. This post was specially done for Lubna's blog for her lovely yearly event - Joy from fasting to feasting.

 

Ramadan Mubarak to all. The holy month is finally here and this time I am going to be in India with my parents and siblings during Ramadan and a few weeks after that. I wish the clock ticks slowly as good times pass even before the blink of an eye. This is the month that brings in me so much of peace and tranquillity. More time is focussed on religious affairs and duties. Here, in the UK, Ramadan is just like any other month probably it is not celebrated as in the Middle East, no special prayers, and not even Azhan is called which is really sad. To feel the spirituality or the feeling of Ramadan I think one needs to be somewhere in the Middle East. India is not bad either.

Lubna’s blog is one of the blogs that celebrates Ramadan well and I have been contributing my recipes to her events for the past few years. When she asked me if I could share a recipe, I told yes immediately. But now I have way crossed the dead-line inspite of her asking me several months ago.

I love how she compiles each post and the Ramadan recipes are always a keeper to try it during Ramadan. At my home, it’s usually traditional menu during the Ramadan days. We usually prepare traditional dishes and try out different varieties keeping its traditional root intact. No fancy shmancy cooking, baking or desserts. There are sweet things, but usually snacks, fruits, hot drinks and as such. Cooking is almost always elaborate especially when it is at home. I just cant wait to be home, to be pampered, to be loved, to have my mom’s food, the most delicious food ever.

Here is an authentic recipe for a variety of rice pancake or rotis, could be called as kin of neypathal, but more on the healthier side. The recipe is same as neypathal, but instead of deep frying, this is cooked on the non stick tawa or a cast iron pan until you see few brown spots and it puffs up slightly. The dough is rolled into balls using greased hands and patted to make thick rotis using your fingers on a greased banana leaf or any greased plastic sheet/ shopper bag. Once all rotis are cooked, you can dip them in warm coconut milk and place them in hot pot or casserole to keep them warm until they are ready to be served. It goes well with any traditional  non vegetarian curry, like Malabar fish curry, Malabar chicken curry or mutton curry, chemmeen varattiyathu, Beef varattiyathu etc.

KaiPathiri: Rice Pancakes with Coconut, Fennel and Onion

serves 4-6

Ref: Neypathal

Ingredients:

2 cups parboiled rice

11/2- 2 cups grated coconut

1 small onion, about 160 g

1 ½ tsp aniseed

salt as required.

Preparation:

1.Soak rice in hot water for 3-4 hours. drain water off.

2. Grind it coarsely using Indian wet grinder adding few spoons of water to make a coarse dough. Add fennel onion and coconut and just blend for few seconds to crush all the ingredients, without over-grinding them. The whole dough will be coarse to touch.

3. Scoop out the dough in a bowl, add salt and mix well.

4. Smear the hands well with oil, take a medium apple sized dough and flatten it on a banana leaf making thick rounds, as thick and as big as a neypathal.

5. Cook both sides on a non stick tawa till both sides puff up.

Notes:

1. I usually end up adding water while grinding rice as my machine doesn’t work with less water. If you get a thick batter instead of dough, do not worry. You can add unroasted rice powder to the batter and mix until you get a soft dough that can be flattened into discs.

Home-made Vanilla Custard

Those days are gone where I used to sit late hours going through several blogs, skimming through their recipes, admiring their photography and write ups and even more, waiting for the new recipe impatiently. Those were the days when we had very few blogs around, and even lesser ones with quality write ups, recipes and photos. I used to follow some blogs religiously and it often disappointed me when the blogger delayed their posts and when I have to see the old post again and again every time I open it. It’s not that there are no great blogs around now. There are. In plenty. And very good ones. But it becomes too difficult to keep up with the updates. Priority in life has also changed and blog hopping has come down to bare minimum, sadly.

 These days whenever I open up my blog for recipes, the same recipe on the front page has been putting me off. It’s more than a month that I blogged something and I am bored enough to see the same recipe that I just have to change it. I haven’t been cooking anything interesting recently and haven’t touched the camera for few weeks now. So whatever recipes that will I will be posting here would be from my drafts, some of them that I shot more than a year ago.

Today I am sharing a very simple recipe here. This is a recipe that I made quite a while ago, when my son kept asking for custard. I always had loads of egg yolks left over from my macaron making. And I decided to put them together into good old custard.  It is simple, clean, creamy with lovely vanilla flavour from the vanilla beans. You could have it along with fruits or just serve them with cake or crumble or use them up in trifle.

Homemade vanilla Custard

Preparation: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

6-7 large egg yolks

1 ½ cups whole milk

300mls double cream

½ - ¾ cup caster sugar, depending on how sweetyou like it

1 tbsp corn flour

2 vanilla pods

Preparation:

1.In a bowl whisk together sugar, egg yolks and corn flour until combined. Keep them aside.

2. In a saucepan, pour in milk, double cream. Split open the vanilla bean, scrape the seeds into the milk and cream mixture and add the pod into the pan.

3. Heat the pan gently, stirring the mixture throughout until it comes to boil. Take off heat and let it cool down, for about 10 minutes.

4. Strain this mixture into egg yolk mixture whisking all the way through, making sure the milk mixture is cold enough not to scramble the eggs. Discard the vanilla beans.

5. Pour the mixture back into the sauce pan, and simmer for about 10 minutes constantly stirring until it becomes thick and coats the back of the spoon. Keep it covered if you don’t want the skin to form on top, you can serve it immediately or chill for later use.

Notes:

1.Cook the custard on a very low heat and stirring  throughout as increasing heat may scramble the eggs.

2. This custard is of semi-thick consistency, if you want pouring consistency, reduce the corn flour to a teaspoon and if you want it thick, increase the corn flour to 2 tbsp.

3. You can add 2 teaspoon of vanilla extract if vanilla bean isn’t available.