'Post' your lakottappam to your friends for a yummy treat

Small things like clothes and food make a place what it is. It's those little things that really matter. They give the place a local habitation and a name. The internet, the email, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp may have swept over a lot of the old; but there are a few things which age cannot wither, like the 'lakottappam,' for example.

Today, who will ever bother to put ink on paper or do a ball pen roll to write a letter when an email can do it all for you at the click of a mouse?

Yes, for the world, a lot of things have changed, but not for Kozhikode, where good food and good times are still a part of life, where lakottappam is still made.

Lakottappam has its connections with thapal or the post. Staid and shorn of glamour, the appam looks anything but appealing. Take a bite and you'll ask for more. The snack reminds you of a post cover and hence the name lakottappam, because 'lakott' was what old timers in Kozhikode used to call the post cover. Therefore, a snack that looked like a post cover came to be known as lakottappam. Give north Malabaris maida and eggs and watch the myriad dishes they cook up!

How about trying out lakkottappam?

Ingredients
4 eggs
2 spoons sugar
4 cashew nuts
10 raisins
3 pinches of cardamom

Preparation
Mix the above ingredients well
Pour ghee into a pan and add the mixture
Stir well. This is your sugar-cashew nuts mix.
In a separate bowl, mix 2 1/2 spoons of sugar and 1 1/2 cups of maida with water
Blend well with eggs
Add a pinch of salt
Ladle out a spoon on to a tawa to form a roti the size of a poori
Place the sugar-cashew nuts mix in the centre of the roti and fold all four sides like a post cover Four such appams can be made with the batter
Mix one cup of sugar in a cup of water and stir till it becomes syrupy
Cut the appams in four, pour the sugar syrup over them and enjoy their taste