Soak the rice in water for about 3 hours. In the meanwhile, dissolve the powdered jaggery in half a glass of water. If there are impurities in the jaggery, decant the solution.

Drain the water from the rice and grind the rice to a smooth paste/ batter using the jaggery solution. If the batter is too thick and difficult to grind, add just enough water as and when required.

Chop the banana into 3 or 4 pieces, and add them along with the seeds from the cardamom pods to the batter. Grind some more till everything becomes a smooth batter.

The batter should have the pouring consistency of pancake batter. After the grinding is done, add the coconut slivers to the batter.

Place the "appa kaaral"/ aebelskiver pan on the stove and pour equal amounts of ghee and sesame seed oil (about a tbsp of each) into each depression. Each depression should be half full.

Wait until the oil-ghee mixture is hot and then turn down the heat to medium. Pour small ladlefuls of batter (enough to half-fill each depression) into each depression. The batter will sink to the bottom of the depression and the fat will rise and some will overspill into the pan. This is fine as it will ensure that the top part of the neiyappam also gets cooked.

As the neiyappams cook, you might start seeing batter ooze up from inside through the top. This is normal and desirable, as I mentioned before, (though not pretty, perhaps) as it means they're cooking well!

With a well seasoned/ non-stick pan, the neiyappams will slightly pull away from the sides of the depression as they cook and float up. Turn them over, using a fork so that the top of the neiyappams are now in the depression and can brown as well. If they don't float up once they have cooked and the undersides are browning, gently coax them using the fork. Too much pressure may cause the neiyappams to break.

Once the neiyappams are browned both on the bottoms and tops, remove them from the pan using a "pappada kuchi" (a metal skewer used for frying pappads) or a pair of forks/ tongs.

Allow them to drain well on paper towels. These dumplings tend to remain a little oily even after they've drained on the towels.

Cool them to room temperature. They're now ready to eat. These keep for a couple of days after which they spoil, but stay a little longer (but become hard) if refrigerated. If refrigerated, you can soften them by steaming/ microwaving them for a couple of minutes before serving.

They are my contribution to Meeta's Monthly Mingle, being hosted at Jugalbandi this month