Microwave Appalam

Appalams are thin wafers made from urad dal flour. There was this lady in my neighborhood who sold home-made podis (spice mixes) , appalams and vathals (sundried wafers) to support her family. Even though it is available in convenient packs at the grocery store, my mom would sometimes buy it from this lady, as a notion of nieghborly support.

Back home when I was little, deep fried appalams were my favorite. I remember requesting my mom to prepare appalams for every meal. But, now that I am the cook and cleaning maid at my home, I try to stay away from deep fried anything. To save my backsplash from grease splatters and my sanity from rancid smoke, I have taken to crisping appalams in the microwave. Lucky for me, I didn't need a written recipe for how to fry appalams . I was a good enough cook to figure this out myself LOL.

Let me post a couple of disclaimers here. Microwaved appalams do not taste as yummy as the ones prepared traditionally. It is a compromise between health, convenience and taste. Also, microwaves, in my opinion, are like babies - no two are alike. The wattage and cooking times vary from unit to unit. Adapt the following to suit your microwave.

Ingredients:

• appalam - store bought or homemade
• pam or any cooking oil 

Steps:

• Spray pam on both sides of applams. Or, spread a little oil,  with a pastry brush.
• Arrange applams in a plate, in a single layer. Nuke on high for a minute. Flip the appalams and nuke for another 20-30 seconds.
• At this stage, the appalams should have blistered on the surface. If not, nuke again for another 10 seconds.

While deep-fried fresh appalam would almost double in size and feels light to the bite, microwaved appalams stay relatively dense.

I like this with spicy food like vaththa kozhambu or kara kozhambu.