Idli

Today I am here with the recipe of a very common and immensely popular south Indian dish of Idli. It remained in my “To Do” list for a long long time. Partially due to the absence of Idli mould and then because of my infamous laziness, I managed to come up with this dish so late. I always think of Idlis as steamed cakes, made of fermented rice and black gram lentils which one can have either in breakfast or even in lunch. Its batter is quite similar to ‘dosa’ batter except it being a bit thicker. You can try out this healthy dish at your own to feel the flavour of south India at will.

Ingredients for 8-10 pieces :

For Idli batter

Rice – 1 cup
Urad dal or Skinless Black Gram lentils – 1/3 cup
Fenugreek seed or Methi – 1 teaspoon
Water as required
Salt to taste

Procedure :

Preparation of Idli batter

Wash and soak the rice, dal/lentils and fenugreek seeds in water for 6-8 hours or over night.

Now take out the additional water from all the ingredients and reserve the water for later use.

Make a coarse paste (not so smooth) with rice in a blender and then transfer the paste in a large bowl.

Then make another paste with lentils and fenugreek seeds, adding small amount of reserved water if needed. This should be a smooth paste. Now transfer the paste in the same bowl containing the rice paste.

Now mix both the pastes very well, beating by hand, to incorporate some air into the mixture.

Cover the bowl and place it in a warm place, like oven. Let the mixture ferment for at least 8-10 hours (for winter more than 12 hours).

After the fermentation add salt to the batter and mix it with light hand. Also add little water if the batter is too thick. However, remember that the batter should not be in pouring consistency as like for ‘dosa’ batter, it should be thicker one.

Now boil water into your Idli steamer and brush oil to your idli moulds.

Divide the batter into your idli moulds, place them into the steamer and steam for 10-12 minutes over medium flame.

After that give it a standing time for 5 minutes.

Then unmould the idlies and serve with sambar and coconut chutney.

For the recipe of ‘sambar’ & ‘coconut chutney’ follow the link Recipe of Sambar & Coconut chutney