Idli batter

Hello everyone,

This is my first post on this blog. Even though, I have tried quite a few recipes, I never got myself to the blog to jot it down for future reference. I finally decided to post them for posterity. Let me start by posting the preparation of idli batter.

Ingredients:-

Boiled rice(Puyukkal ari, idli rice) - 4 cups washed and soaked for 4 hours in water

Whole urad dal(Uzhunnu parippu) - 1 cup washed and soaked for half an hour

Soak 2-3 tsps of methi seeds(uluva) along with the urad dal.

Salt to taste

Proportion to be followed is 4:1(4 cups of rice and 1 cup of urad dal)

Preparation:-

Grind the urad dal and methi seeds together in a mixer or grinder adding water in small quantities. Grind until it becomes soft. This mixture should be such that you can take it out using your hand. If you add more water while grinding, this mixture will become watery. Care should be taken while adding water. Transfer this mixture to a large vessel. Vessel should be large enough so that the batter does not spill out when it foams up

Now take out the rice from the water and start grinding the rice by adding water in small quantities. This mixture should be ground properly and pour it to the vessel Once you have finished grinding the rice, add salt to the vessel with the batter as required and blend the mixture using a ladle. Do not blend this mixture after this.

Keep this in room temperature for 6 hours or until the batter foams up. This can vary depending on the local temperatures. Hotter the weather, earlier the batter foams up. Store the batter in fridge. Remove the required quantity into a small vessel when you prepare idli instead of removing the entire vessel from the fridge. The top portion of the batter is always good for preparing idlis. When you reach the bottom, you can use for preparing dosas.

Before pouring the batter onto the idli plate. Grease them with little oil, preferably gingely oil. I use Idhayam nallayennai. Fill the idli plate cup only 3/4th so that when it gets cooked, it will not get out of shape because of the overlapping of the other plates. Fill the idli cooker with enough water(water should be below the level of the lower plate) and put it on the stove in SIM mode. Place the idli plates on top of the other and make sure that the holes alternate. Close the cooker and put the stove on HIGH flame for 5 minutes and SIM for another 5 minutes or until you hear the cooker letting out a whistle. Remove it from stove and allow it to cool for another 5-10 minutes. Remove the idlis from the plate using an idli spoon. Dip the idli spoon in water to make sure that the cooked idlis dont stick on to the spoon and come out in proper shape from the plate.

You can have these idlis with chutney. Posting the picture of my elgi ultra 2 litre grinder