Notes On Indian Pancakes Recipe - Cooking Index
Notes On Indian Pancakes Recipe - Cooking Index
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Indian pancakes, made out of bean flour, soaked bean, or soaked rice and bean batters, are among India's favorite breakfast and snack foods. Generally speaking, Indian pancakes are made without eggs, white flour, or leavening agents, though in some cases the batter is allowed to stand long enough to ferment naturally. Sometimes the batter is seasoned just with salt. At other times, especially when the pancake is not going to be stuffed, minced ginger, Chinese Parsley, and green chiles are mixed in.
Cooking these Indian-style pancakes is quite an art but one which is not at all difficult to master. In India, the pancakes are always cooked on seasoned cast-iron griddles. As the batters have a tendency to stick to the griddles, Indian cooks use various methods to make their griddles as "nonstick" as possible. One South Indian housewife I know always grates her coconut onto her griddle, using it as a platter. The natural oil released by the coconut keeps her griddle permanently seasoned. She does not, of course, ever wash it. Another South Indian chef rubs heated griddles with cut onion halves. This simple procedure, he says, makes his griddles "nonstick". My own feeling on the matter is that since one can now buy real nonstick griddles and skillets, why work so hard on cast-iron ones?
The general method for making Indian pancakes is the same: A batter is made, most frequently with beans,or rice and beans that have been soaked and ground. In India, this grinding is traditionally done on heavy grinding stones. Nowadays it can be done with the greatest of ease in blenders and food processors. This much of the pancake-making process is simplicity itself. The moment of truth comes in spreading out the batter.
Unlike white-flour and egg batters, bean batters do not flow. You cannot tilt your skillet around expertly and have the batter flow to the edges as it would for a crepe. Instead, the batter will sit obstinately like a lump in the center of your skillet. It has to be coaxed to move. This is best done with a round soupspoon.
The first step should be to grease the nonstick skillet very lightly and heat it. Then, drop a blob of batter in the center. Next, put the rounded bottom of the soupspoon very lightly on the center of this blob of batter and, using a slow, gentle, but continuous spiral motion, spread the batter outward with the back of the spoon. You can make the pancakes as thin as you like. You may not be able to manage a "continuous spiral" motion the first time around. Do not worry about that. As long as you get the batter to spread, basically using circular motions, that is good enough. Because nonstick skillets have no grip, if you push too hard with the spoon, the entire batter may begin to move. If you have that problem, use a lighter touch and try not greasing the skillet before you put in the pancake.
Many of the batters for Indian pancakes may be made ahead of time and refrigerated. So if you want to eat the pancakes for breakfast, you can easily make the batter the night before. Sometimes the pancakes themselves can be made ahead of time and wrapped in foil. They can then be reheated by being placed in a medium-hot oven for about 15 minutes still covered in foil.
Source:
Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East Vegetarian Cooking
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