Kerala Pathiri / Rice pancake

Pathiri and chicken curry/ Meat curry is an absolute favourite of most of the Mallu’s, but I have to confess that I was never a Pathiri fan even though I eat it when I am given some. For the same reason I never bothered to make it myself, maybe it’s an acquired taste or maybe I was a picky eater back then. But last year when I visited my sister in Dubai she made some pathiri and Beef curry for us and I was surprised that I quite liked it and enjoyed the pathiri’s for the first time. Like many other things, trying Pathiri was on my agenda after that day. But since pathiri podi is not readily available in Asian shops where I go, I never got around in making them or maybe  I should believe that there is a right time for everything. This time when I came from India, I got so homemade rice flour/ pathiri podi and I used most of it for making idiyappam and before I finished the last bit of it I decided to give Pathiri a try. I asked my sister for her recipe as she is a kind of pathiri expert as she makes it every now and then. Before going to the recipe let me tell you something ,to make some good pathiri you need experience and  little practice, even though I followed my sisters recipe, my pathiri’s were not as good as hers and I know what exactly  went wrong and the next time when I make I won’t make those mistakes again( refer notes). I guess that’s how we learn to make good pathri’s !! I served pathiri with chicken curry and some coconut milk. I have eaten pathiri dipped in coconut milk along with chicken/meat curry  from my muslim friends and coconut milk makes pathiri soft and gives a nice flavour,  it’s a gourmet style of eating them, but you can go ahead and  eat them just with some curry.

Ingredients ( serves 2)

Roated rice flour/ Pathiri podi  – 1 ½ cup

Water – 1 ½ cup

Salt

Oil – 1 tbs

Method

•          In a thick  bottom saucepan boil some water adding salt and oil.
•      Once water boils, gradually add the rice flour  stirring continuously with other hand. Once all the flour has been added and mixed, remove from fire.
•        Now the next step maybe be intimidating as you have to knead the dough while it’s hot, use wooden spoon if you find it hard to knead it with hands until its warm. Knead well until you get a smooth dough.
•       Pinch out small balls from the dough, roll it out with a rolling pin by dusting some rice flour as needed.
•     Heat a non stick pan on medium heat and place the pathiri on pan. Cook on medium flame by flipping sides in between for about  2 minutes. The pathiri will puff up.

 Notes

When I made pathiri’s the first half came out really well and it puffed up but the second lot didn’t, as I rolled out all pathiri’s  together and by the time  I reached the second half the rolled out pathiri’s were little dry (maybe it was  because I was slow in rolling out ! ). So next time I am going to cover the pepared dough in cling film or damn cloth. I won’t roll out whole pathiri’s together and will pinch out balls and roll it out and cook at the same time covering the rest of the dough in damn cloth every time as believe that it  will retain the moisture in dough which will help in puffing up.