The Daring Cooks cooked with me!

Last year, when Lis asked me if I would host a Daring Cooks' challenge, I had a moment of panic. I had no idea what to choose. I said 'yes' of course, then tried to narrow down the options. There were 3 challenges I had in mind, from 3 different continents. I think I chose the most 'daring' one, as I knew the appams would be unfamiliar to most of the members. I also didn't want to choose something that was too familiar, nor something that needed hours on the stove in the hot weather, eliminating my other 2 choices. Now, you may be wondering what appams are at this point. They are a stove-top flatbread made of rice and coconut milk and yeast and salt. That's it. That's all it takes to make a bread that is both thick and spongy and thin and crisp. They are simple and delicious and naturally gluten-free and vegan. The only thing you need is time to ferment the batter. Oh, and some delicious saucy dishes to accompany them! I made about a dozen dishes to prepare for this challenge, but only included some of the recipes and linked to others. By default, I called the accompaniments 'curry', but I think this may have been a turn-off to some Daring Kitchen members. It seemed that lots of people a) don't like 'curry' and b) think of it as a winter dish. What a shame, when there are so many different types and so many fresh flavours to explore!
Let me just show you in pictures what I made, then you can link to the (giant) challenge PDF for full recipes and links.

Cooking the batter in an appachati

In preparing for this challenge, I tried about 6 recipes for appams, using rice, rice flour, cream of wheat, a packaged mix, coconut meat, coconut milk and I don't know how many other variations. In the end, I decided on this recipe from Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen. It was the most reliable and used rice, cooked rice and coconut milk, all easily obtainable ingredients. Thank you Aparna!

You can even make them flower-shaped

To accompany the appams, I made a variety of dishes, some hot, some cold, with meat, fish, and vegetables. Here are some photos. You can find all the recipes in the pdf.

Carrots with Tropical Flavours

Baked Goan Fish with Fresh Green Chile Chutney

Eggplant Curry (see link)

Sri Lankan Beef Curry

Shrimp in Coconut Milk

Thanks so much to Lis and Ivonne and The Daring Kitchen for allowing me to host a challenge! A huge thank you also to those who participated and made some amazing-looking dishes. Be sure to check out the homepage for a slideshow of them. You can find many more photos and all the recipes and techniques here. Hmm, guess I need to include these blog-checking lines:

Blog-checking lines: Mary, who writes the delicious blog, Mary Mary Culinary was our August Daring Cooks’ host. Mary chose to show us how delicious South Indian cuisine is! She challenged us to make Appam and another South Indian/Sri Lankan dish to go with the warm flat bread.