Kerala Malabar Special Pathiri

I’m excited to reveal this month’s theme, ‘NO FERMENT’, dosa/pancake varieties originated from all 4 Southern states of India. I can sense how super excited you all are to know this theme. Especially when it comes to South Indian breakfast like idlis and dosas, though it’s simple to cook, it needs hours of fermentation. Many opt for store-bought idli dosa batter, but it may not give the desired result as homemade. These ‘no ferment’ tiffins are bliss, when you have surprise guests at home or when you have no plans for the next meal.

Click here to jump to recipe card!

First comes in this theme is our God’s Own country Kerala’s special ‘Pathiri’. These are gluten-free flatbreads/rotis made from roasted rice flour. It’s also known in the names such as Aripathiri, rice pathiri, pathil. It’s a popular dish among the Mappilas community of the Malabar region of Kerala. It’s highly consumed during iftar to break their fasting. 

This recipe is so simple as it has minimal ingredients just salt and coconut oil (optional) in addition to rice flour. Roll boil the water and add salt, oil, and roasted rice flour or pathiri powder, mix and knead it well to a smooth and soft dough, roll into thin flatbreads, and roast it on tawa, cook for a minute on both sides till it puffs up. Stack it and relish this super soft, light, airy rotis with any spicy curry or any sweet syrup. 

This pathiri can be compared to Akki roti of Karnataka, and Tandalachi Bhakri of Maharashtra. Akki roti is also prepared in the same way as pathiri but mixed with few more ingredients such as onions, carrots, coriander leaves, dill leaves, cumin, and sesame seeds. Whereas Rice Bhakri or Tandalachi Bhakri is prepared the same way as pathiri and rolled out as thin breads. The only difference is pathiri has to be kneaded immediately when they are hot/warm while Bhakri is kneaded after a while.

Pathiri powder is readily available in stores under different brands. They are basically roasted rice powder. If you cannot fetch pathiri powder, just buy rice powders that are super fine in texture, dry roast them well on a pan for some time. Or you can try with idiyappam or appam powder. 

Mostly pathiri are served with spicy curries or any coconut milk-based curry. Some prefer sweeter accompaniments like coconut milk mixed with jaggery or just thick jaggery syrup.

Here, I served with Fish Moilee which is Kottayam’s special Fish curry. Fish is cooked with thin and thick coconut milk spiced with green chilli and black pepper. Just wait for 2 weeks, I’ll post it along with a bonus recipe with a veg twist. As next week’s post is Ney pathal/Ney pathiri/Poricha pathiri, which comes as my Kitchen secret recipe.

Coming to my Kitchen secret, it’ll enthrall you with its fusion and surprise packages. I’ll play with the leftovers of that recipe or I’ll bring a new shade or dimension to the original recipe. Check the Kitchen secret page of my website which will never fail to fascinate you with its creative recipes. Another variation of pathiri is Ney pathal/Ney pathiri/Poricha pathiri. It’s the fried version of pathiri added with a few more ingredients. With this, I wanted to show my versatility by including a few healthy ingredients thus turning it into a nutrient-packed breakfast. 

Now let’s kick start the recipe…👇

Roll boil required quantity of water (my rice powder required 1 ¼ cup, varies from 1- 1 ½ cup, refer notes for the detailed tip) with salt and oil in a wide thick bottomed pan or kadai. 

Then lower the flame and add rice powder to it gradually.

Parallelly, stir the flour while adding it as well. Mix till you don’t see any streak of rice flour unmixed. 

Switch off the flame, close, and let it rest for 5 minutes undisturbed. Then transfer to a deep bowl. Grease your hands with oil, start kneading vigorously by punching, folding, swirling, continue this pattern for 5 minutes till you get a soft, smooth dough. 

Wrap the dough in a dampened towel. Roll small balls out of it.

Dust with rice flour, and roll it as very thin bread.

For uniformity in size, you can use any bowl to cut round bread from the rolled rice bread (refer pic and video).

Toast these rolled bread on a hot griddle pan or Tawa, keep in medium flame and flip each side after a minute. If you press with ladle or cloth at edges, slowly it puffs up. Flip twice and remove it from the pan.

Roll it into thin flatbreads, I have shown in the video, how transparent it was while rolling and also after cooking in this pic as well…👇

Stack them and wrap them in a towel or foil to keep warm, also avoids getting dried.

It’s best when served immediately. Serve this light, soft pathiris with any spicy curries or any coconut milk-based curry. Here I served with Fish Moilee, coconut milk-based curry. Its recipe will posted nest week.

Recipe card

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 15-20 minutes 

Cuisine: Kerala, India 

Category: Tiffin

Serves: 4 pax

Author: Manimala

Ingredients:

Roasted Rice flour/pathiri powder – 1 cup

Salt – 1 tsp

Coconut oil – 1 tsp

Water – 1 ¼ – 1 ½ cup (refer notes)

Instructions:

1. Roll boil required quantity of water (my rice powder required 1 ¼ cup, varies from 1- 1 ½ cup, refer notes for the detailed tip) with salt and oil in a wide thick bottomed pan or kadai. 
2. Then lower the flame and add rice powder to it gradually. Parallelly, stir the flour while adding it as well. Mix till you don’t see any streak of rice flour unmixed. 
3. Switch off the flame, close, and let it rest for 5 minutes undisturbed.
4. Then transfer to a deep bowl. Grease your hands with oil, start kneading vigorously by punching, folding, swirling, continue this pattern for 5 minutes till you get a soft, smooth dough. 
5. Wrap the dough in a dampened towel. Roll small balls out of it.
6. Dust with rice flour, and roll it as very thin bread, for uniformity in size, you can use any bowl to cut round bread from the rolled rice bread (refer pic and video).
7. Toast these rolled bread on a hot griddle pan or Tawa, keep in medium flame and flip each side after a minute. If you press with ladle or cloth at edges, slowly it puffs up. Flip twice and remove it from the pan.
8. Stack them and wrap them in a towel or foil to keep warm, also avoids getting dried.
9. It’s best when served immediately. Serve this light, soft pathiris with any spicy curries or any coconut milk-based curry. Here I served with Fish Moilee, coconut milk-based curry. Click to check out the recipe.

Notes:

• Selecting the right rice flour/powder is essential. You can use plain rice powder but it should be a fine powder, shouldn’t be as coarse as puttu powder. It needs to be roasted well before cooking. Dry roast it in a thick pan or kadai. Alternatively, you can buy pathiri powder or idiyappam/appam powder which is readily available in the market under different brands. These powders are pre-roasted. You can directly cook these powders. Another option is Easy or Instant Pathiri powders available in few brands, it doesn’t even need cooking, directly add salt and cold water and knead it into a soft dough. The endnote is, choosing the apt rice powder is crucial in getting the perfect pathiris. 
• The second important step for the best pathiri outcome is the quantity of water. For 1 cup of rice, I added 1 ¼ cup of water. Some rice powders may require 1 cup water but some need 1 ½ cup. It all depends on how much the rice powder is being roasted. So, start with 1 cup of boiling water in a pan, parallelly boil another ½ cup of water in a bowl. Add 1 cup of rice powder to 1 cup boiling water, mix and check. If more water is required, use that ½ cup boiled water, first add ¼ cup, if still, you find raw flour, then add the remaining ¼ cup. You need not mix thoroughly the flour with water. Just make sure that all flour is incorporated and you don’t find any raw rice flour streaks untouched. 
• Close the pan and let it rest for 5 minutes. Then knead the dough vigorously for 5 minutes. If you cannot tolerate the heat, initially mix with a wooden spatula for a couple of minutes, then knead with your hands to give that required pressure. You can intermediately grease your palms with coconut oil to avoid flour sticking.
• Once you finished kneading, you can start rolling the flatbreads. No need to rest the dough. But make sure you cover the dough to avoid drying it. 
• Use rice flour/powder generously to dust the balls while rolling.
• It’s better to toast the pathiri parallelly while you are rolling to get finer results. Or you can roll all together and toast them in a shot, but make sure you cover the rolled pathiri from drying out.
• It needs a minimal 1 minute of cooking on each side, once it puffs up, flip it. It shouldn’t brown like wheat rotis, it’ll be white in colour, here and there brown spots are fine.
• Stack them after cooking and wrap them in a towel or foil to keep warm, it also avoids getting dried.

Now time for my Kitchen secrets…😉😍.

As I promised you earlier, my Kitchen secret recipes will definitely enthrall you with their fusion and surprise packages. I’ll play with the leftovers of that recipe or I’ll bring a new shade/dimension to the original recipe. Are you excited to know about the variation I tried? Let me reveal it…😍. The most popular variation of pathiri known in this region is Ney pathal/Ney pathiri/Poricha pathiri. It’s the fried version of pathiri added with few more ingredients. With this, I wanted to show my versatility by including a few healthy ingredients thus turning it into a nutrient-packed breakfast. Yes, I created a new version of ney pathiri/ney pathal. Can’t wait anymore..😉, just click here to unveil the Kitchen secret recipe.