Paal Paniyaram for Bonjour

This post is exclusively for bonjour series by Jabeen's Corner.  By this time most of us should be familiar with Jabeen's Bonjour series.  I feel very happy to be part of this great series.

When Jabeen asked me to make my signature dish, the first thing which came to my mind was Chocolate Fudge Cake, this cake has never let me down, but the next thing again which came to my mind was I have to buy cream, also my little one ho loves this cake is not well at the moment.  I really didn't want to make it when she can't have this, so I asked my husband to give me suggestion, well he suggested this paal paniyaram.  I have made this only a very few times and every time it's a big hit.

Paal paniyaram is a traditional Chettinad recipe.  Chettinad Cuisine is well known for their spicy, aromatic flavours.  It is also known for this special recipes like paniyaram, idiyappam, murukku etc.  Traditional recipe suggest to use raw rice and urad dhal to make a thick batter, which is then fermented and made as paniyaram.  I have used only idli batter in this recipe, which I found it quite easy method and much more soft paniyarams.  Since idli batter is readily available in most of the South Indian's home I thought this would be better option.  Also these paniyarams gets soaked quickly and you don't have to put them in hot water before soaking in milk.  This has won the heart of my family members, hope it'll win yours too.

Ingredients:
Idli batter- 250 ml ( recipe follows )
Milk- 500 ml
Coconut milk- 250 ml
Cardamom powder- 1/2 tsp
Sugar- 75 g
Oil for frying

Method:
Heat the oil in a kadai for deep frying.  Drop small spoonful of idli batter in the hot oil.  Fry them until they look very light brown in colour.  Take it out from the oil and drain it in kitchen towel.  Heat the milk in a pan  for about 5 to 10 minutes.  Add the sugar and stir well.  Finally add the coconut milk and cardamom powder and take it off from heat. Add the paniyaram in the hot milk, let it soak for about 10 minutes and serve it immediately.

Note:
You can vary amount of sugar according to your taste.  Also if your batter is too thin, you can add some rice flour and mix well.  Make sure you don't add too much rice flour which will harden the  paniyaram and it never gets soaked well.
In case if you find that your dumplings are too hard, you can immerse them in hot water for 5 minutes and then soak it in milk. 

Idli Batter:

Parboiled rice-  3 cups
Urad dhal- 1 cup

Soak urad dhal and rice separately.  Grind them separately to a smooth batter.  Then combine both the batter, mix it along with salt and let it ferment over night.  Once fermented use it according to the recipe.
This proportion will yield about 3 to 4 litres of batter.

Linking this to White Christmas Challenge,  Yummy Desserts for New year, Sinful delights, Jingle All The Way- Edible entertainment, SYF and HWS series- Cardamom