Circa 2020.

Yes, we will continue the magnum opus of my disasters in the Covid-era.

Sooji appe suddenly mesmerized the influenza crowd like the pied piper swaying the rats to his tunes.

And rightfully so, because this humble breakfast dish from South India is a soul satisfying item!

But a nightmare to prepare!

Sooji or semolina is not an easy ingredient to cook. Perhaps a bit easier than millets but a bitch of an ingredient to cook.

I, being the impressionable influenza at that time, jumped on the bandwagon, to post about sooji appe. 

And I had worked with sooji before but had never prepared appe.

So I bought a sooji appe pan without paying attention to its handle, the absence of a lid and the thickness of the material of the appe pan. Because my hands were itching to spend the money I could have saved from the endless partying that stopped in the Covid-era. 

So I added a random amount of sooji in again a random amount of curd, and added water, salt and green chillies to the mixture. Then, without letting the mixture sit for a while, I added the appe pan to the stove and started adding oil to the surface of the pan. Without even thinking about whether the pan was heated, I added the mixture to the appe moulds. 

When I “thought” that the appe balls were cooked from one side, I turned them to the other side.

And burnt my hands because there was no proper plastic or wooden handle.

And almost turned the pan over because the projections that were supposed to be the handles were fiery hot. They were so small that holding them through a cloth would have burnt the cloth. 

The worst design for an appe pan!

And when I finally took off the cooked appe, they were flat ovoid burnt disasters instead of the globular fluffy appe shown in the videos. 

So what did I do wrong?

So apart from impulsively purchasing an appe pan that was difficult to handle because of it’s design and did not have a thick base to distribute heat evenly and prevent burning, I did not let the sooji mixture sit longer.

Sooji mixture has to be treated like an brooding introvert man – you have to let it sit in it’s own simmering thoughts for 2 hours while the fermenting element in the curd helps it rise up before it is ready to be put in the trial-by-fire (of a relationship 😉) in the appe pan. While the appe pan is thick, the mixture rises evenly and does not get burnt.

(So ladies, if your man has worked on himself, he will not get burnt by your intensity 😜)

Unsurprisingly, I did not realize this cooking mistake on my own, my dear mom gave a good lecture on every deed done wrong in cooking appe.

After the first trial, my mom always accompanied me while cooking appe and we were eventually able to cook appe the way they should be. We had to be extra careful because of the pan, so we added ENO to allow the mixture to rise. 

These days, I do not have the patience to cook appe, so the pan is sitting in some hidden corner of the kitchen cabinet. I would rather cook a cheela out of that mixture. 🤓