Sri Lankan · Bread
Appa
- Advanced
- 35 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with richness that coats and comforts.
Ingredients
- 300 g rice flour
- 60 g cooked short grain rice
- 400 ml thin coconut milk, warm
- 200 ml thick coconut milk
- 1 tsp caster sugar
- 1 tsp instant dried yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- coconut oil for the pan
Equipment
Wok
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Blend the cooked rice with 150 ml of the warm thin coconut milk to a smooth cream, then whisk it into the rice flour with the sugar, yeast and remaining thin milk until lump free and the consistency of single cream.
- Cover and leave in a warm place until the surface domes, carries fine bubbles all over, and smells faintly of beer.
- Stir in the thick coconut milk and salt; the batter should now coat a spoon thinly and run off it in a sheet.
- Heat a hopper pan or small deep wok over medium heat, wipe with coconut oil, pour in a small ladleful and immediately swirl so batter climbs the walls in a thin film.
- Cover and cook without moving until the rim is dry, lacy and lifting away from the metal while the centre is set but still soft, then run a thin spatula round and lift it out.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Wok technique 28 recipes
- Everything went in dry and went in in order. Wet protein or wet vegetables drop the wok below the heat that browns, and what follows is a stew in a round pan however hard the burner is working.
- The wok stays loud from the first moment to the last. A wok that falls quiet has been overloaded, and the food in it is now boiling in its own liquid.
- Every piece is coated and glossy with no pooled sauce in the bottom of the dish: the sauce should cling by reduction and starch, not sit under the food.
- Vegetables keep their colour and a bite at the centre. Grey-green greens or a limp stem mean too long in the pan, and nothing later in the dish recovers them.
- It carries the faint scorched note that only comes from food touching metal above about 200C, distinct from bitterness, which means the aromatics were burnt and is a different failure entirely.
Where it goes wrong Too much went in at once, or it went in wet. The wok loses its heat, the food releases water and simmers, the sauce thins instead of clinging, and the dish arrives pale and slack with liquid pooling under it.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Grüner Veltliner
- Also Right
- Vermentino or dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Saison
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with citrus & herbs
The vegetable whisperers: peppery, high-acid whites that flatter greens, roots, and grains without bullying them.
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