Vattayappam

1. Take 1/2 cup rice flour and 1 cup water in a bowl.Put on stove .Let the mix come to a boil and keep on stirring till it becomes thick and sticky.( the process is called thari kurukku making;its important to do this in low flame )Keep aside and let it cool to room temp.

2. Add yeast to 1/4 cup of warm water and keep aside.

3. Take a deep bowl,take remaining rice flour,Jaggery syrup/sugar,yeast and thari kurukku.Mix well .Close the bowl and let it ferment for about 8 hrs.( The batter won't be of running consistency:it will be rather like a loose dough )

4. After fermentation

5. Grind together grated coconut,cardamom and jeerakam/cumin seeds to a coarse paste.( without water;or use very little only if you can't grind with adding water ).Add this to the prepared batter,add 1/4 cup water and baking soda.Mix well and keep for another 1 hr.The consistency should be like this.

6. Take an 8 inch round pan( a steel plate or baking pan is good enough ).Grease it with some oil.Pour the batter upto 3/4 th of the pan.Keep in idli steamer and cook for 15 mints .( After 10 mints,open the lid of the steamer and add raisins on top of the vattayappam.).
Remove for fire and let it cool down.Cut into pieces and serve.

7. Notes:the rice flour used for making vattayappam should have some grains in it.( thari podi; not finely powdered flour ).You can use appam podi with some thari/grains.( its important ).

8. If you don't get grained rice flour,use appam podi and use 1/2 cup rava for making thari kurukku.

9. You can use either jaggery or sugar as sweetener.I added both jaggery syrup and sugar( half:half) as I liked my vattayappam to have a nice light brown colour.

10. You can make two medium sized vattayppams with above mentioned quantity.