BONJOUR SERIES # 11 - PAAL PANIYARAM

Hey Everyone.. Hope everyone is doing great. Since, I am running out of time today.. We will be directly diving into the guest post. 

For today's hop , We have Ayeesha from Taste of Peral City.

She is a darling Bhabi of mine. Almost a year ago, one morning I learnt about her blog, and then I was so happy to tell her I own one too.. But then I almost quit blogging at that time.. It was her work that inspired me to come back in full spree.. She shared her success tips.. One of which is to "Interact with other Bloggers". This one little but mighty tip changed my whole perception about blogging.. Thanks to her ! I would consider myself quite successful after the makeover.. :) 

Now, like I said... I am running late.. so, with no further delay.. I present to you, Ayeesha - in her own words.. 

Ayeesha's Guest Post

About me:

Hello Foodies,
  Everybody knows me as Umm Mymoonah through my blog and whoever have contact with me through mail knew that my name is Ayeesha.  I know many in this blogsphere have a doubt that why I blog as Umm Mymoonah.  So let me clear that  confusion first ,  Mymoonah is my daughter's name, In Arabic Umm means mother, Umm Mymoonah means Mother of Mymoonah.  This is a common among Muslims to use this terminology once they have a baby.
 Long back ago, that is nearly four years back, when I started this blog, I was a new mom, with 6 months baby , Mymoonah in my hand.  In my early  days of cooking I was totally relied on Internet for my day to day cooking.  I can even share one secret with you all, once my husband came back hungry  from his work and asked me what's for dinner tonight, I said I didn't cook today.  He asked why and I said, there is no Internet connection.  I think now you all can understand how much I was dependent on blogspot and websites for my cooking. No coming to the point how I started this blog, one quite evening when I was with my laptop and searching for recipes, I was just casually having a chat with my husband about some wonderful food blogs which I used to refer for recipes.  My husband said , why don't you start one too, you can keep that as your own reference.  At that point I really didn't ant to go for it, but still he went ahead and created one for me, it was in August 2008.  From that point till 3 months probably I blogged, blogged means I just posted a few recipes and I never interacted with fellow bloggers, to be honest I wasn't even aware about that.  Then my camera got repaired, and so many other issues also came one after another, so I abandoned my blog totally for nearly 1 1/2 years.  My blog got a new life and started it again only when I moved to Germany.  So yeah, I started my blog in UK, it got a  new life in Germany and now it's growing slowly in India.  In  one year time when I lived in Germany, I did as much as possible to my blog, I invested all my thinking and time only in blogging, sometimes I even felt guilty do I have to spend so much hours just for a hobby, then I realised it wasn't just a hobby for me, it was and it is a passion for me, passion for cooking, learning new techniques, photography and so on.  In simple words I can also admit like many other bloggers that I'm addict to this blogging.  So I think that's enough story about me and my blogging.

How I know Jabeen's Corner:
Jabeen is not a new face to me, I know her very well even outside blogging world.  I think I'll let the cat out of the bag, Jabeen is my Husband's cousin, so no wonder how I know her.
Today's recipe:

When Jabeen asked me to present my signature dish, the first thing which came to my mind was Briyani, then Chocolate fudge cake, then badusha.  Badusha recipe is there in my blog already and Briyani, Chocolate Fudge cake I wasn't up for it now.  So today I'm presenting Paal Paniyaram,  I have cooked this only for few people, from them I have received a big thums up.  Paal paniyaram is traditional Chetinad recipe, where they soak raw rice in water, then grind it and let it ferment and then they make the paniyaram and soak them in sweet milk.  I have used a different method here, let's have a look at the recipe
Paal Paniyaram:
Serves 4

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.

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.