I had to research a bit to get the traditional taste of this Kerala- Christian dish. We used to get it from our Christian neighbors during Christmas time. In the conventional way Orappam (ഒരപ്പം) is prepared in a special made earthen pot (ഒരപ്പ ചട്ടി) and baked with coconut shell charcoal fire. I used preheated oven and oven safe tray instead. The taste, I would say is close to the traditional method even here… Try it out!

Ingredients

1. Rice flour             : 2 cup
2. Thin coconut milk             : 3 cup
3. Thick coconut milk           : 2 cup
4. Water                   : 2 cup
5. Jaggery                : 2 cup
6. Egg        : 1
7. Egg white            : 2
8. Fennel powder   : less than 1/4 T sp.
9. Ghee      : 1/4 cup.
10. Coconut oil         : 1/4 cup.
11. Cashew nuts
12. Raisins
13. Pea nut/Cashew nut

Method

• Break the eggs and beat well.
• Boil 2 cups of water and add the jaggery . Wait until the jaggery dissolves completely.
• Filter the jaggery syrup for removing the dirt from the jaggery.
  Wait for the syrup completely cool down.
• Fry the nuts and raisins in ghee
• In a kadai /pan add the thin coconut milk and dilute the rice flour without any lumps.
• In the mixture add the jaggery syrup, egg ,fennel powder and the thick coconut milk.
• Mix everything without any lumps .
• Keep the kadai on the stove while continue stirring it.

Keep on stirring without any break , make sure no lumps .

• Once the mixture starts thickening, add the fried nuts and raisins.
• Add the coconut oil a little at a time
• Keep on stirring until the mixture thickens and the water evaporated completely. At this point we can see the oil oozes out from the mixture.
• Take out the kadai from the stove.

• Grease an oven safe dish or tray with ghee.
• Pour the mixture to the tray and level it with spatula.
• Sprinkle the coconut oil on the top.
• Preheat the oven 375 degree
• Bake the mix for about 25 min.
• Once it Cool down, cut it to desired shapes.

Tips:

1. I kept the Orappam in room temperature for overnight to get its conventional taste and aroma.
2. Also for better traditional taste, you can add palm jaggery instead of normal jaggery.
3. Feel free to adjust the amount of Coconut milk , jaggery , ghee to individual taste.