Paal Paniyaram - பால் பணியாரம் -Step by step

          Today is the third day of the series "Village food" .Today we are going to see "Paal paniyaram". Paal Paniyaram is nothing but, urad dal dumplings soaked in coconut milk and served as a dessert. This is a very authentic sweets of Tamil Nadu. Kids will love these simple and humble paniyaram. We can make savoury paniyaram, by adding some tempered onion,green chillies and shredded coconut. Grinding the batter in a wet grinder will yield soft paniyarams. But if you are going to grind in small quantities, then we can grind the batter in a mixie. If you are grinding the batter in mixie, then soak them in hot water. This will make the paniyaram soft and make them to absorb more coconut milk.Check the recipe and try it. 

Ingredients:

For the Paniyaram:

1.Urad dal - 1/2 cup

2.Raw rice - 1/2 cup

3.Salt - a pinch

4.Hot water - 1 cup

5.Oil - for frying

For the coconut milk :
1.Coconut - 1/2
2.Hot Water - as needed
3.Cardamom  - 2 to 3
4.Sugar - 3 tbsp or as needed

Method:

* Take the raw rice and urad dal and wash it. Wash the rice and urad dal for atleast 4 times. Soak it for atleast an hour. Grund it in a mixie or a grinder. Take care ,not to heat the batter,while grinding. If not the paniyarams will become hard.Since it was a small batch, I used my mixie, if not gridner is very apt for grinding paniyaram batter.The batter should be thick, as that of a idli batter. * The batter should be nice like this picture.Add little salt to the batter and keep it ready. Meanwhile,lets start preparing the coconut milk. Its very easy, if we make the coconut milk, while the rice is soaking. Grind the coconut with cardamom to a fine paste. This will make sure for us to get good amount of coconut milk. *Now start adding hot water to the grinded mixture and squeeze coconut milk our of it. If needed,we can grind the coconut paste, after extracting milk from it. Now add more hot water and extract coconut milk .This is called second milk. The use of hot water, will help us to get good amount of coconut milk. Add sugar to the coconut milk and keep it ready. * Now heat a pan with oil. Slowly drop small amount of batter in the oil.Cook the paniyarams well, but not crispy. As soon as the paniyarams are taken out of the oil,strain them ina paper towel.Then  drop them in the hot water bowl. This will make the paniyarams soft. But If you are going to grind the batter in a wetgrinder, then no need to soak them in hot water. * Then take the paniyarams out and squeeze excess water and rop them in the prepared coconut milk. Serve them as such. This goes well as a dessert in parties .

Notes:

* The batter should be thick, if not we will have tails in paniyaram.

* The batter should not become hot,while grinding,if not the paniyaram  will become hard.

* Soaking of paniyaram in hot water ,will make the paniyaram soft.

* If your paniyaram itself soft, then don't soak them in hot water. Just soak them directly in coconut milk.

* Grinding of coconut with cardamom will bring out the flavour of cardamom .

* You can also add cardamom powder.

* If we are calorie consiuous, we  can mix half the amount of coconut milk with plain milk.

* The batter has to be smooth ,like that of the vadai, if not the paniyaram will burst in oil. (Thanks for the tip "Madhu Pravin")

Linking this to "Friendship 5 Series ", started by "Savitha Ramesh" and "Geetha Achal"