Verumarisi adai

I'm not sure if it was something about the simplicity of adai made with just rice or the aroma of rice and coconut on the grill but when we were little Sundaram our cook used to try enticing us to eat tiffin by making this. We never cared much for tiffins like iddlies or uppuma but whenever Verum arisi adai was on, we were sure not to miss it. Though a well-know Pallakad speciality which is ususally only made at homes, everyone has their own variations, here's mine that closely resembles Sundaram's creation though his was slow roasted on a cast iron grill over a woodburning stove!

Ingredients:

Parboiled (Iddily) rice - 2 cups

Grated fresh coconut 1 tblsp

Salt - per taste

Water - as required

Sesame or canola oil for making adai
Chopped methi leaves 1/4 tsp or kasoori methi (optional, I use this inplace of murangai keerai)

Method:

1. Soak rice for 5 hours and grind into a rough batter. Sometimes this is made into a thick dough that people roll into balls and pat into adai directly on the dosaikal, but I make mine into a dosai batter consistency because it requires less oil when making the adai.
2. Add salt.
3. Can be made right away but fermenting the batter overnight at room temperature gives it a slightly sour flavor.
4. Before making the adai, blend in the coconut and keep some of the batter aside to add the chopped methi leaves so that you can have some plain ones and some with methi. 
5. Heat the dosaikal (griddle) and pour a ladle full of the batter and flatten it. (Sometimes the batter is made very thick and flattened by hand. This gives you a very thick adai but you'll need to use more oil to cook it this way.)
6. Unless you are making it on a non-stick griddle, drizzle some oil along the edges and make a hole in the center of the adai and add some oil to it. Flip and let the other side cook.

Though you don't need any accompaniments to this, I love it with the kadugu mangai oorugai gravey or with rasam or sambar to dip. If you have left over batter, it keeps well in the refridgerator for about a week as long as you haven't added the coconut or meti to it.

-நீங்களும்  சிக்கிரம் பண்ணி பாருங்கள்!