Chettinad paal paniyaram is a traditional sweet recipe in Chettinad cuisine. I wanted to try this for a long time but somehow missed trying it. Very recently when I was talking to my friend and I asked her for the recipe. She is a native of the Chettinad region and she happily shared her mom’s recipe of Paal paniyaram. I have tasted this very long back in my friend’s house during my school days. But I don’t remember the taste. Later after discussing with my sister, she insisted to share the recipe of Paal paniyaram. The main ingredients used to make paal paniyarams are raw rice, urad dal, coconut milk, and sugar. This is one of the simple and easy dessert recipes. A very popular and forgotten recipe next to paal kozhakattai. For paal kozhukattais we use rice flour for making the balls. This paal paniyaram can be made using jaggery powder as well. Also we can garnish the paniyarams with finely chopped almonds or pistachios to make it rich. Also check out
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Paal paniyaram recipe
Wash and soak rice and urad dal together for 3 hours.
Let the batter be very smooth and not too thick.Ensure that no particles are present of rice or urad dal present. Else it will burst while frying.Add a pinch of salt and mix well.Let the batter be light and not too thick. A thick batter will result in hard paniyarams and it will not absorb the coconut milk.
Heat oil for deep frying.Traditionally, in chettinad they use coconut shell to make the tiny paal paniyarams.They clean the coconut shell, the one which has 3 eyes, and pour the batter in it.The batter will come out from the hole.We can do it without the coconut shell.Just take a small portion of the batter and put balls into the oil.Do it in batches.Cook on medium flame.When it turns pale golden color, take out from the oil.
Drain in a kitchen towel.Repeat this for the rest of the batter.
In a bowl add the coconut milk. If using homemade one, use the first milk.If using store-bought one, which is usually thick, take 1 and ½ cup and dilute with ½ cup of water.Add the cardamom powder to this.Add the sugar and mix well.I used white sugar, you can use raw sugar or jaggery as well.
Just before serving immerse the paniyarams in hot water for 1 minute.Take out and drain the water.Now add these paniyarams to the coconut milk and immerse it well.Let this sit for 5 minutes.
Serve the paal paniyarams.
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