Traditional Pesaha Appam and Pesaha Pal Kurukku

According to our( malankara orthodox) belief, we make pesaha appam (holy body ) and pal(holy blood) celebrating the passover day during the holy week . The shown type of pesaha appam is mostly made in vadakan part of Kerala,India.

Making this pesaha appam and pal is now becoming a scarcity esp among the youngster couples due to its assumed complexity of the making process. But i would like everyone to know that its only a matter of little will power and a few hours of our time we can make this sacred pesaha appam at the leisure of our own home without the help of our grand mothers or mothers for that fact. This way we can yet sacredly celebrate monty thursday without compromising our traditional culture esp. for all of us living abroad and alone without much family members.

The quantity given is for a family of 2 to 6 (give or take).I love to make for couple of my friends esp. since they are our family here in the US.



Here is how i made it:

Pesaha Appam
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Ingredients
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1. Uzhunnu(Urad Dal) - 1 cup
2. Raw Rice- 2 cups (rice flour can also be used instead with same quantity of 2 cups)
   
3. grated coconut - 1 packet or 1 whole coconut(i used one whole packet of daily delight brand of coconut)
4. Garlic Pods - 8
5. Jeerakam - 1/2 Tbsp
   
6. Salt - to taste

Preparation for Pesaha Appam
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Fry urad dal until the sweet flavor of dal comes out and the urad dal changes in color.Do not over fry. After frying, soak the urad dal for overnight. Then remove the dal from the water and spread the dal in any newspaper for drying from the water.I dried using the fan in my room for almost half hour. Also soak the rice for overnight . Dry the rice the same way as with the Dal. Do not fry the rice.

Once the dal is dried , DRY grind the dal separate in the grinder. Donot add water. Grind the dal to a medium consistency.There is not need for the dal to be of fine powder just that dal shud be broken into pieces, the dal shud feel like how we make for wet puttu podi(not very fine ).

Then DRY grind the rice, the same above way. Donot add water. If you are using rice flour then the same can be used as such for mixing.

Then grind the coconut, garlic and jeerakam together adding water little by little. Do not add too much water. The coconut just needs to be smoothened and garlic and jeerakam crushed well.I grind the coconut for about 3to 4 mins on normal speed.

Mix with hand the powdered urad dal, rice or rice flour and coconut mix and keep aside.the final batter shud be of thick and not smooth consistency.But the more coconut u add the tastier the appam will be.

Making Process:
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Cooking the mix is exactly like making idli, instead of idli thattu we use the aluminum thattu .In the aluminum pan (aluminum thattu that comes with pressure cooker) using hand or a tablespoon to flatten the mix in the pan to the desired thickness.About half of the thickness of the pan wud be perfect. Put enough water in the cooker as we wud do for making idli . Then put the pan for cooking in medium flame for about 15 to 20 mins. Do not put pressure on the cooker.

Repeat the process until all the mix is over. To remove appam from pan, wait until the appam is completely cooled from cooking.



Pesaha Pal Kurukku
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Ingredients
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1. Jaggery - 500 gm
2. Water - 1/2 glass
   
3. Coconut milk - 500 ml
4. Rice Flour - 5 Tbsp
   
5. Cardamom Powder - 1/2 tsp.

Preparation of Pesaha Pal Kurukku:
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Make a caramel by boiling the jaggery in 1/2 glass of water and keep aside to cool. For coconut milk i used the ready made coconut milk, coconut milk powder can also be used to make 500ml of thick milk.

Mix the rice flour in required amount of water just enough to dissolve the rice flour very smooth. this is done to avoid formation of flour balls.Do not add too much water.

Now in a sauce pan , mix the jaggery caramel, coconut milk and rice flour mix. Now slowly heat the saucepan in medium flame and keep stirring until the the whole mix thickens up to a payasam or porridge consistency. The sweetness can be adjusted by adding little more rice flour.Add little water to reduce the thickness in case the mix is heated up too fast.

Remove from flame and add the cardamom powder and keep aside for cooling.

Hope everyone who try this recipe find it in its authenticity.