National Dishes of the World

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Hoppers (appa)
Photo: VinPrasad, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

bread vegan

Hoppers (appa)

ආප්ප (appa)

Bowl-shaped pancakes of fermented rice and coconut milk batter, crisp at the edges and soft in the middle.

Eaten in: Sri Lanka

Prep
15 min
Cooking
40 min
Resting
8 h
Total
8 h 55 min
Servings
4

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About the dish

Hoppers, appa in Sinhala and appam in Tamil, are thin pancakes of fermented rice flour and coconut milk batter cooked in a small, deep pan called a hopper chatti. Swirling the pan spreads the batter up the sides, so the pancake takes the shape of a bowl: the rim is lacy and crisp, the centre thick, soft and slightly sour. The favourite is the egg hopper, with an egg cooked in the bottom. They are eaten for breakfast or supper with fiery lunu miris onion and chilli relish, pol sambol and curries. Related appam are made in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Main ingredients

  • rice flour
  • coconut milk
  • yeast
  • sugar
  • salt

More: Wikipedia (en)

Recipe

Hoppers (appa)

https://foodmap.ominuvo.com/dish/hoppers

Ingredients

4 servings

4 servings

Method

  1. Mix the yeast and a tablespoon of sugar with the lukewarm water and leave for 10 minutes until frothy.

  2. In a bowl combine the rice flour with the yeast and 250 ml of the coconut milk into a thick, smooth batter; cover and leave somewhere warm for 6–8 hours or overnight.

  3. Once risen and full of bubbles, stir in the rest of the coconut milk and sugar, the salt and the soda to get a batter like pouring cream.

  4. Heat a small deep pan or wok, 18–20 cm across, and grease it with oiled kitchen paper.

  5. Pour in about 80 ml of batter, hold the pan by its handles and swirl it once so the batter coats the sides and the excess pools in the bottom.

  6. Cover and cook over medium heat for 2–3 minutes until the edges are golden and crisp and the centre is set; slide the hopper onto a plate.

  7. Serve warm with sambol or curry.

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