Date Filled Semolina ( Rava ) Paniyarams, Aebelskivers

          This month for the 'Shhhhhhhhhh Cooking Secretly Challenge ', I was paired with Priya of Priya's Versatile Recipes. For those who are not familiar with it, this is an event initiated by Priya, we have a facebook group, where we are paired with another blogger each month. Between the two bloggers, we give each other a couple of ingredients and using one or both of it, we are supposed to make a dish and post it. The fun part is the guessing, we post our completed dishes in the group, a little before the reveal date without letting out the secret ingredients. Priya had given me semolina and dates as the secret ingredients, initially, I was thinking about doing a cake, pudding, pancakes, but finally settled down with these paniyarams/ aebelskivers. I have used semolina/sooji/rava for the batter and dates and walnuts for the filling. The paniyarams tasted really good, semolina gives a nice crispy texture to the paniyarams, we loved it, perfect evening/ after school snack for the kids and Priya, thanks a lot for giving me these delicious ingredients..

Need To Have

• Semolina/ Rava/ Sooji - 1 cup
• Milk - 1/2 cup
• Yogurt/ Curd - 1/2 cup
• Salt - 1/8 teaspoon
• Sugar - 3 tablespoon
• Baking Soda - 1 teaspoon
• Green Cardamom Powder - 1 teaspoon
• Chopped Dates - 1/2 cup
• Chopped Walnuts - 1/8 cup

Method

          Take the semolina, sugar, salt, baking soda and cardamom/ elaichi powder in a bowl. Add the milk and yogurt to the semolina, mix well and leave it for an hour.

          Mix the chopped dates and walnuts and keep. After an hour, you can see that the all the milk and curd has been absorbed by the semolina and the mixture is very thick, add 1/4 cup of water to it and mix, now the batter is ready.

          Heat the paniyaram/ aebelskiver pan, reduce the heat to the lowest, add a little oil to the pan, as shown. Add a little batter, top it with the date and walnut mixture, then pour some more batter to cover the filling. Now increase the heat a little, cover and cook till the bottom turns golden, and the batter on the top looks cooked and you can flip the paniyarams.

         Flip, adding a little oil, cook the other side, no need to cover with the lid. Once done, remove the paniyarams/ aebelskivers and serve them warm.

Note
The amount of sugar given was just right for us, the paniyarams were mildly sweet, if you want very sweet paniyarams, add more sugar to the batter, or add some powdered jaggery/ brown sugar to the dates mixture, or otherwise, you can serve the paniyarams with some honey or maple syrup.
I have used walnuts, you can use almonds or cashews also.