Kuzhi Paniyaram

I love recipes that salvage leftovers, or make more interesting stuff with leftovers than the 'main' dish. This is one such meal. While a lot of people actually make their dosa/idli/paniyaram batter for Kuzhi Paniyaram and make it regularly, we don't. Not because we don't like it. Just that I've never thought of it. We never had this, as kids at home. I mean, who had leftovers of Dosa! :)

However, I saw Cham's recipe for this and wondered about how cute they look! We tried it once. And I loved it. I mean, I'm obsessed that way. Obsessed about figuring out interesting recipes for what I think is leftovers :D Like the way I ruined a good lemonade by adding a highly concentrated 2 tbsp of strawberry syrup left over from a dessert experiment. All because I couldn't see it lying in the fridge. I love emptying the fridge. I feel efficient :D Which is why I can plan meals for the next two years and dream about an empty fridge. It gives me peace of mind when I plan and make a things-to-do list. Okay, I digressed. My OCDs don't end and this post isn't a forum for that!

Coming back, we met her and she fed us fat, juicy looking, crisp-on-the-outside-but-spongy-on-the-inside Gunta Panganaalu. I love this name :D Reminds me of Shetty uncles from my childhood in Bangalore. Anyway, I loved the recipe and decided to pester my mom-in-law to finally get me an abel-whatever pan from India. She got me a non stick pan which was small. I wanted a large cast-iron one dreaming of making rounds of Kuzhi Paniyaram to feed hungry people. I have this vision of my house being the abode of abundance with people forever coming over to eat and all that. Much like the old times in India used to be. Its a different thing that A thinks rather differently about this! He gets scared at these harmless dreams. Okay, again, I digress.

So, when my mom-in-law got me this, the time was opportune. Want to know why? I thought I will show her how efficient a home-maker I was and how well I fed her son who looks so scrawny that people thought I ate his share of food too! So, the day before she landed, I ground up TONS of Idli/Dosa batter, so my fridge will look like the classic South Indian housewife's fridge. Big utensils with nicely risen batter. To make anytime and everytime. Since the word efficient doesn't apply to me for any part of my life, let alone my home-maker self, the idlis turned red. Ya. Red. I threw a tantrum because now, I didn't know how to show I was a good wife. I didn't wake up at 4 AM like the mom-in-law. I didn't pack fresh lunch for my husband. He took leftovers because I believe food tastes better the next day :P, I didn't get up lovingly to watch him eat cereal in the morning. Now, this Idli batter also threw me off course!

In sheer anger, I threw a lot of batter and sat there waiting for her to come. Come, the next day, without any pretence of jet lag, my mom-in-law was up at 4 poking in the kitchen. She saw the rest of the batter and decided to make dosas for bfast. She realized something was awfully wrong with the batter in probably 10 seconds. So, then she made this. Her son, after 2 years, ate hot breakfast and left for work, happy! She made sure I had my fill since I'm the breakfast person and I snacked on these the whole day.

*scene change - time moves - a year later*

I come back from India to see old batter in the fridge. While I've become really efficient, my OCD hasn't really gone down. I decided to make a weekend breakfast out of this batter. I could've made Dosa, but, but, the memories of my mother in law rustling up some Kuzhi Paniyaram was too hard to forget. So, A got this for brunch one Saturday morning. It turned out to be brunch thanks to picture-taking. And may I say that it was brilliant! I loved the way it looked and how fast it cooked and how much less oil (oxymoron there!) it took.

Its a great idea of breakfast or even a snack and a great idea to finish up your batter. Add some onions and some coriander and ta-da, you have a spicy, filling meal ahead of you! I'm not posting a recipe since I've linked Cham's recipe to this. I make it more or less similarly and her recipe has worked wonderfully for me. Thank you, Cham :)