Idli

Idli is one of the most common breakfast dishes which is served in almost every other household in South India. It is one of the easiest and healthiest breakfast dishes one can prepare with bare minimum ingredients. Idlis too have variants. We have already seen how to prepare “Jackfruit Idli”.

The recipe that we are going to look at today, is a standard one. Idli prepared this way is healthy and soft, and is easy to prepare too. This Idli can be prepared either by using raw rice and by using idli rava. In today’s recipe, we shall see how Idli can be prepared from scratch, the former way.

Traditionally, Idli and dose batter is prepared using stone grinder. But going by the fact that not all households these days have stone grinders, we shall go ahead using the mixer for grinding here.

Idli tastes best when it is prepared using a batter which is ground and fermented naturally than using the instant mix. Due to lack of time I see a large number of people going for the former though. But trust me, preparing the batter hardly takes any time. You just need to give few minutes for soaking the ingredients, few minutes for grinding and few minutes for pouring in the moulds!!! The other stages, soaking, fermenting and steam cooking, happens without your assistance. You can even prepare and refrigerate the batter for future usage.

Personally, I prefer preparing Idli batter at home, as it is not only easy, but is also fresh, healthy and free from preservatives.

Fermentation is the key here. Idli batter should be properly fermented if you want the Idli to be soft and fluffy. Ideally, it takes about 8 to 12 hours for fermentation, but again it can vary from place to place depending upon the temperature conditions.

Check out the ‘Note section below for more tips and information on how to get the Perfect Idli – Soft and Fluffy’.

Total time: 10 hours 20 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Preparation time: 10 hours

Servings: 16

Ingredients:

Dose/Idli rice: 1 cup

Urad dal: ½ cup

Salt to taste

Method:

 

•        Wash and soak dose/Idli rice and urad dal separately for about 2 to 3 hours

•        Grind the soaked urad dal to a smooth paste and transfer to a container

•        Grind the soaked rice to a smooth paste and transfer it to the container containing ground urad dal

•        Add little salt, mix well and let it ferment in warm conditions overnight

• Once the batter is fermented, the next step is to steam cook it. For this, Grease the Idli moulds and pour the batter to the mould

• Steam cook it. I have used the normal pressure cook here, without the whistle for about 20 minutes in medium flame

• Once the Idlis are cooked, remove the mould off heat and unmould the Idlis

• Hot, soft and fluffy Idlis are ready to serve

• You may either serve the sambar seperately or serve Idli as ‘Idli Sambar Dip’

For a quick Sambar recipe, refer “Idli Sambar”

Note :

•  Grinding Urad dal and rice separately: You might be getting the doubt as to why Urad dal and rice are ground separately. Well, it is not mandatory to do so. In a hurry, if you have ground them together, no harm. Relax. But yes, grinding them separately is a good practice as it helps in faster fermentation.
•   Using water for soaking while grinding: As a practice, we don’t discard the water that is used for soaking rice and urad dal. Rather, they are ground using the same water. My mom says, doing so, ensures better fermentation
•   Salt for Batter: It’s a standard procedure again to follow as far as grinding the Idli batter is concerned. But the key to get the perfect batter depends largely upon the fermentation which follows. I see there are quite a lot of people who add salt to the batter after fermentation and just before use. But i personally prefer adding it immediately after the batter is prepared and I let the batter ferment with salt. One reason being, I forget making any additions to the fermented batter before being used to make Idli !!! The other reason is that, salt enables the fermentation process
•  Right Temperature conditions for fermentation: Fermentation under ideal conditions happen in 8 to 12 hours. If you live in a warm region, then your Idli batter can be fermented overnight and used the very next day. But if you stay in cold region you will have to do all the circus to ensure that the batter is fermented. It may even take longer for fermentation. You can try out the below tips, few of which I too have followed:

o   You may place the batter container over the warm stove top and leave it overnight. Of course, make sure the stove is switched off.

o   You may boil some water in a big vessel and place the batter container in the water and leave it overnight to ferment.

o   If you have heaters at home, you may even try placing the batter container over the heater and let it ferment

o   You may preheat the oven to say 90-degree Fahrenheit and place the batter container in the oven and let it ferment. Here again, make sure to switch off the oven after preheating.

Adopting these methods ensures that the batter is fermented in say about 8 to 15 hours. If the batter is not fermented yet and if you still have time, you may allow it to ferment for few more hours, but if you lack time, you may adopt the below steps:

•        Use yeast for fermenting the Idli batter: Take ½ tsp. of active yeast and mix it in ½ cup of warm water. Keep it aside for a few minutes. Stir again, add a little sugar and mix. Now, add this to the Idli batter, mix well and allow it to ferment.
•        Use baking soda: Add ½ tsp. of baking soda to the batter and mix well. Let it ferment.

Idli Stories:

Idli is nothing but South Indian Rice cake!!! Conventionally, we have the round shaped Idli moulds at home. There are different types of moulds available depending upon the type of Idli that you wish to prepare – Tatte Idli, Button Idli, etc!!!

You need not have mould to relish Idli !!! You can just use any of your regular steel cups or glasses and steam cook it in your pressure cooker without whistle, say for about 20 minutes!!!

While in Germany on a short visit, I prepared Idli regularly using parboiled rice instead of Idli / dose rice, normal pressure cooker without whistle instead of Idli cooker, and steel glasses instead of the regular round Idli moulds ! It worked wonders for me… And guess what, we had landed in Germany in the peak winter. Still, I went ahead with Idli batter preparation. For fermentation, I kept the batter container over the room heaters!!! Bingo, it worked without any external agents for fermenting. This experience of mine is what I have quoted in the ‘Note’ section for fermentation.