Today, after the Wholewheat Oats Pancakes and Orange Scotch Pancakes, which are normal pancakes with a little difference in their making, here is the original Malabar style pancake! There are so many names to it, but we call it pola and some parts of North Kerala call it as Mutta Appam or Mutta Pathiri, which just means egg pancakes. 🙂
How strange does it feel when something that you really don’t like is a kid’s favorite? 🙂 My kids love it to the core. In fact when my parents were here, umma would very religiously make this for breakfast every Thursday and Saturday. Rasha would have a couple for her evening snack on Thursday and she would eagerly wait for Saturday morning to have it again. Once they returned back to home to settle, I literally stopped making it even though I had the special chatti that is used to make it – you can see in the picture below. Rasha would keep asking me for it and I would keep pushing it away since I never liked eating them. Finally she got so upset that she just blurted out, “Ummi, how many times I can tell you to make pola? You really don’t like us!” Baah, she hit with a hammer. Now I make this every alternate Saturdays, just for the kids to eat… Hehe…
Before I go on to the recipe, I must share a story. This happened during the time that McDonalds had just introduced their breakfast menu in their outlets in UAE. B is somebody who loves to go around and eat a lot, much to the irritation of umma, who would always lecture him about the goodness of eating home made food and the downside of eating outside food. Hehe… As soon as he saw the new breakfast menu at McD, he caught up with a friend and sneaked out in the morning to try the breakfast, which mainly had pancakes, a hashbrown, and a muffin with an omelette inside along with a cup of coffee. When he came back home, we asked him about his experience. He said, “Ellaam OK, pakshe aa pancake enna saadamundallo… athenthu? Ummante pola…” (Everything was OK, but that thing called pancake, that was nothing but umma’s pola…) and he went off dejected. He is also not a fan of pola and he was expecting pancake to be something similar to cake! 😀
The best part about this pancake is that there is no raising agent used. The special make of the chatti bring about the holes in the pancake. It is to be had hot enough with a drizzle of melted ghee – read Milma! – and a sprinkle of sugar. My kids love it this way, while I love having it totally doused with sweetened coconut milk. The holes just pull in all the coconut milk making it nice and soft, that it hardly requires chewing! HD prefers it with sweetened cold milk, so you can see we like it in different ways. However just like me, HD is not very keen on having this as well, so I have company. Hehe…You can see in the picture below how the holes have formed inside the pancake… Beautiful, right? 🙂
So that’s the 3 back-to-back series on pancakes! Hope you all enjoyed each of the posts! 🙂
Posted on this day:
2013: Mini Sausage Rolls
2014: Easy Cheesecake Cupcakes
Pola/ Maida Ottada/ Mutta Pathiri ~ Malabar Style Pancakes
Ingredients
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 egg lightly beaten
- 1/2 cup coconut milk
- Pinch of salt
- Water to make batter
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients and add just enough water to get a thick batter, similar to pancakes.
- Heat the special earthern pot which looks similar to the appa chatti. As soon as it gets hot, pour a ladle into the center and gently spread. Don't spread too much since it may get stuck to the sides once cooked.
- You will know it is cooked when the center detaches from the pan. Push out using a spoon.
- Serve warm with ghee and sugar or sweetened coconut milk.
My mil Umma keeps talking about this.. and she even said that this is F’s fav. She had a chatti and a flat thing which is kept on the chatti and that is where she pours the batter. So when we were there, she took out this special chatti and that flat thingy and made mutta appam and to me like your B said was just pancakes! 😛 But yeah the diff is in the holes of this appam and the ones we made with the raising agent. Also she said that the chatti has to “used a lot” to get it working. As usual, your clicks are getting stunning.. so I think I will stop saying that and tell you only when it goes bad! 😛 I will try this on my pan, lets see how it turns!
Thank you so much Fami… 🙂
Tempting pola.. Can we try in appam pan
I am not sure about that Farin… maybe you can try!
Lovely series of quick breakfast ended with the quickest recipe…it has come out very well
Thank you so much Amrita…
This one is so quick and simple …we have a similar recipe made with riceflour and coconut grind togethercalled Chitou Pitha …similarly done in earthen pan…thanks for this share
We also have something similar to what you said, but we grind rice, coconut and egg together to make a savory version… InShaAllah must make that and share soon… So good to see so much similarity! Thanks a lot Alka…
How can McD’s American style pancakes compare at all with pola made with coconut milk? I don’t like American pancakes either. They’re just maida, baking powder, eggs, sugar & salt.
What an interesting earthenware pot!
Hehe… it’s just that it tastes similar… Thank you so much Bibi…
We call it as arippapam and eat with coconutmilk and sugar!its our fav raf! your pancake series super ideas!
That is a different name, Shazia… Thank you so much dear…
I can imagine how yummy these will be with drizzled ghee and coconut milk!
Thank you so much Divya…
That chatti is unique. Looking at the pancake one would think it had a raising agent added to it. Lovely pictures. Your kids wanting these everyday reminded me of my boys when they were younger. Egg parathas went on and on until they got sick of it.:)
Haha… Thank you so much Kanak… 🙂
Looks yummy, perfect combo with spicy chicken curry
We have this sweet, Suja… the one for spicy curry is different… Thanks a lot…
Loved the pola ..looks yumm..I’ll love it with coconut milk as well
Thank you so much Gloria…