The versatile deep fried Appam was posted a year ago with wheat flour and banana. The flexibility of this snack is its adaptability to a number of grains or milled powders of those grains- raw rice, rice powder, wheat flour, refined flour, millet powders and so on.. Here I have tried red rice powder in combination with wheat flour. The Appam batter here is not deep fried but gets a healthy makeover as Paniyaram – which is made with less oil in the Paniyara chatti.
  

Now, when does the true urge to make appam set in? Any guesses??

You buy bananas;
consume a few;
give away a few;
forget the following day about the bananas;
third day- the bananas have become extra ripe;
changed colour;
become softer inside;
the urge to make Appam arises!

Well ripe banana is synonymous to Appam in our household. Sometimes, we deliberately leave aside a banana or two to be transformed into Appam. I think the tempting factor is the addition of cane jaggery or palm sugar to bananas, that makes it a super special delicacy, yet it is a hard core simple recipe to handle.

Well ripe Banana here acts as a softener and the flour of your choice and sugar with water make it a beautiful batter.  In Tamilnadu cuisine, rice flour is added to deep fried snacks like vadai, bhajji, kara sevu and many more to enhance the crispiness. Karuppatti paniyaram  or sweet paniyaram in many places are made with raw rice and palm/cane jaggery alone.

I tried the appam as its healthier variant ‘paniyaram’ with the combination of red rice flour, wheat flour, ripe banana and palm sugar. This powdered Cambodian palm sugar was the last of the batch and I have no more of it, which I realized only after the batter was done and no photos clicked. Hence, the picture shows unrefined cane sugar instead of palm sugar.

The addition of equal quantity of red rice powder, made the paniyaram extra stronger to withhold its shape with the beautiful texture of crispiness than soft.
  

Sivapparisi Karuppatti Paniyaram/Banana Fritters with Red rice and Palm Sugar
  

Ingredients

the last batch of palm sugar powder

• sivapparisi maavu/red rice flour – 3/4 cup
• gothumai maavu/wheat flour – 3/4 cup
• panai vellam/palm jaggery (powder)- 1 cup
• elakkai podi/cardamom powder – 1/2 tsp
• chukku podi/dry ginger powder – 1/2 tsp
• baking soda – 1/2 tsp
• well ripe soft banana – big – 1 no.s ; if small – 2 no.s
• salt – a pinch
• water – as needed to make a thick batter
• oil – to fry in paniyara chatti/mould

  
Method of Preparation

1. In a blender, add both flours, palm sugar,banana, cardamom powder, dry ginger powder, salt, baking soda with water and blend into a thick batter, almost like a cake batter.
2. The only ingredient left out is oil
3. Pour the batter in a bowl and adjust water if needed
4. Heat the Paniyaram Pan and pour 1/2 tsp oil in each mould and let the oil heat up
5. Pour 1 dinner spoon of batter in each and let it turn golden brown. Because of the palm sugar, the golden brown would be darker brown
6. Flip the half done paniyaram, for the other side to cook
7. When done, remove and place it first in an open container. Immediately closing the container would soften the paniyaram.
8. Sivapparisi Paniyaram is ready.

Note

1. One can replace palm sugar with cane jaggery. Dissolve jaggery in water and strain for impurities and make a thin syrup.
2. The syrup can be used instead of water with all the above mentioned ingredients to make paniyaram batter.
3. The flexibility of this appam/paniyaram is that one can even omit the banana, or replace the red rice with wheat flour with banana.
4. If one doesn’t have paniyara chatti, feel free to deep fry or even make wonderful pancakes with the same batter.