I guess we had our share of snow for the year. It was
snowing horrendously over the past two weeks followed by the heavy rain and
blustering winds. Since we dint get any snow last year, it was a
sight to see the streets covered in soft fluffy snow, snow kissed trees and
hills. It was a task scraping down the ice off the car numbing your fingers
with the cold seeping through the gloves, clearing off the driveway and driving
on the slippery roads.
The snow has all gone now, but it’s still cold with
fluctuating temperature constantly hitting below zero, snowing raining, winds
and all that could remind you of cold. Snow was good even though freezing, the
son and the neighbourhood kids spent time playing outside until late, making
snow man, sledging and throwing snow balls at each other. I just watched them
through the window, sipping hot tea to keep myself warm
All you want for winter is some warming, comforting and
quite a filling meal, perfect for a cold chilly weather. This recipe of mine
does fit the chilly weather. Atti-pathal, which literally means ‘layered loaf’ is a very favourite of ours and a
delicious recipe which involves quite a bit of work. It is similar to lasagne, with alternative
layer of meat mix and the pasta sheets, but use egg mix instead of the cheese. This is one dish, that I would suggest everyone to try atleast once in their life time. Absolutely scrumptious!
We in kannur call it ‘Atti pathal’, but many others call it Atti
pathiri/chatti pathiri etc. Whatever you call it, this is the savoury version of the chatti pathiri I posted long back. It is one of the most popular snacks that comes from
North Malabar Muslim house hold, where they usually serve this for an evening snack.
But this is so rich, that it would keep you full for longer so that a dinner
usually would not be required.
Recipe is straight forward, make the chicken filling,
make the pancakes, and layer them by dipping the pancakes into the egg mix.
Sounds simple? It’s not hard to make, believe me, but it does take very long
time to prepare. Chopping, sautéing and cooking; this is a labour-oriented
dish, but the end result is very satisfying. These kind of labour oriented
snacks are usually made during Ramadan, and is had once the fast is broken.
Since preparing atti-pathal takes quite a bit of time,
cooking process can be done over couple of day’s time. Make the filling one day, and do
the rest next day. Making the whole dish in a day can tire you out, and you wouldn’t
want to do it again. So it would be a good idea if you could split the job. You
could also use the same filling for any snack like samosa, cutlets, spring
rolls etc..Over to the recipe:
Ingredients:
750g
chicken on bone
2
tsp oil
1-2
tsp black pepper powder
¼
tsp turmeric powder
1
tsp salt
For masala:
5
medium onions sliced, 500g, 4 cups
8
garlic 1 ½ tbsp, finely chopped
2
”, 1 ½ tbsp finley chopped ginger
4
green chillies finely chopped, 2 tbsp
½
cup finely chopped coriander leaves
¼
tsp turmeric
¾
tsp garam masala powder
For pancakes:
2
cups plain flour
2
large eggs, 120 g
2
¼ cups water
¾
tsp salt
2
tsp melted ghee
For egg-milk mix to coat
the pancakes:
4
eggs,250g or you may use 5 if you don’t have enough eggs to coat the pancakes
¼
cup milk
pinch
of salt
Preparations:
For the filling (Chicken
masala):
1.Rub the chicken with
salt, turmeric and pepper powder. Place it in a saucepan, add oil, cover and
cook on medium heat until the chicken is done, turning couple of times
occasionally. Once the chicken is cooked, boil off the liquid in the pan, turn
off the heat.
2. Cool the chicken down, separate
the chicken off the bone and shred the chicken using fingers and discard the bones. Keep the shredded chicken
pieces aside.
3. In a large frying pan
or a sauce pan, throw in the sliced onion, ginger, garlic, green chillies and
salt and cook on medium heat until onions are soft, wilted and translucent.
4. Add pepper powder, turmeric
powder and sauté for few more seconds.
5. Add cooked minced meat
and lime juice to this; mix well and simmer for about 5- 10 minutes on medium
heat keeping the lid on.
7. Add chopped coriander and garam masala to this and stir well and cook for further couple of minutes until the leaves are wilted.
Egg-milk mix:
Break the eggs into a wide
bowl and whisk in milk. Add a pinch of
salt and keep aside. This is used to coat the pan cakes while layering, and to
keep the whole Atti pathal into one piece without splitting.
For the pancakes and final Assembling:
1. To make the batter, Mix all the ingredients well in a
large bowl using a balloon whisk or Blend them in a blender until everything is
blended without lumps.
2. Now, for making your pancakes, make them to the size
of the saucepan or cake tin that you will be doing your final assembly. I
cooked my atti pathal in a 9 inch pan, so I made my pancakes slightly bigger
than the pan, about 10-11 inch, so that I can cover the base of the pan well.
For making the pancake, Mix egg, flour, salt, ghee and water into a lump free
batter.
3. Heat a frying pan to medium heat, pour a ladleful of
batter into the centre of the pan, and with the back of the spatula, move in a
gentle coil motion starting from the centre of the pan stretching out of the
pan to draw the batter out to make a thin pancake. You can also swirl the pan
to spread the batter to form a thin pancake. Cook for a minute, then flip over and cook on
the other side for half a minute or so until you see few brown spots sparingly
on the pancake. You will get about 10-12 pancakes of this size with this amount
of batter.
4. Grease the pan you are going to make your attipathal
and place the first pathiri onto the base of the pan.
Note: I
sometimes layer my pan with aluminium foil to avoid the pancake sticking to the
pan. Not necessary, but if you are worried about your pan-cake sticking to the
pan, line the pan with aluminium foil. I also cook pancakes and do the layering
of the pathiri in the saucepan simultaneously, so, by the time I finish making
the pancakes, I would also have finished layering the pathiri. I do it mainly
because, while stacking up the pan-cakes, there is a possibility of the
pancakes sticking onto each other making it difficult to separate. You may
avoid this by gently smearing the cooked pancakes with oil or by placing foil
or cling film between the layers OR by placing them separately on a news paper.
I don’t do any of them, as I can manage assembling and pan-cake making at the
same time.
5. Make a second pancake, same as above, dip it in egg-milk
mix and place it on the first pancake. Scatter some masala on top sparingly and
place another pancake dipped in egg-milk mix on top of the masala. Keep
repeating the procedure until all the pancake batter is used up to make
pancakes and layering is done. When it reaches the top-most layer, place 2
pancakes, just as how you did for the base of the attipathal.
(So, when you flip your pan cake, if in case if one
pancake stick to the pan, your filling is still safe as there is another
pancake beneath it. This is my tip).
6. Pour the remaining egg-milk mix onto the stacked pathiris
and tuck in the sides of the pan cakes
in.
7. Cover the pan tightly with a tight fitting lid, place
a simmering plate (if you have one as this prevents the pathri from burning) on
the heat and place the saucepan with the Atti pathiri on the simmering plate.
Let the atti pathiri cook on low heat until the egg mix on top is set and steam
has started coming through, about 20-30 minutes depending on the heat and the
pan used. Flip this on to a plate, and slide it back to the pan, the top side
going down. Cook for 5 more minutes.
You can cut them into squares of serve in wedges and have with ketchup if you like it that way.
Notes: Making this attipathal is not a science. You can use
any size pan and make make pancakes to fit that pan.
This can also be baked in a pan. Bake it in a moderate
temperature oven until the top is just golden.