Idli

Idli is the compulsory breakfast item served in all the south Indian restaurants. When I was in my boarding school I used to hate Idlis, I used to hide them in sambar katoras when the house leader would come for checking if we have left anything in our plates. But I love the idlis that my mom prepares. I used to wonder how can my mom make such soft idlis while the school idlis were so hard. After my school I never made guts to have idli anywhere.
    After my marriage I used to get the ready made idli batter from the stores and prepare idlis, it would come nicely and I liked them. Then my mom suggested me to why shouldn't I go for preparing the batter myself at home instead of buying it every time and hence she gave me some packets of home made rice flour. It was like passing a test for me to prepare soft idlis, finally I passed it :) Its not so difficult to prepare idlis we should know the consistency of batter that is needed for idli. It should not be very thin nor very thick. We will see below the steps to prepare Idlis at home.

Ingredients:

Rice	3 cups
Urad dal/ black gram skinned	1 cup
Poha/ beaten rice	¼ th cup
Fenugreek seeds	1/4th cup
Salt	To taste

 
Steps:

1. Wash rice and add 1/4 cup of poha to it and keep it for soaking for 6-7 hrs.

2. Wash urad dal and keep it for soaking along with fenugreek seeds for 6-7 hours. I generally prefer keeping this in the afternoon so that in the night I get time for grinding and keep the batter for fermentation process.

3. Grind the rice and urad dal separately with little amount of water and mix them. See that you don't feel the rice particles in your hand after you check the rice batter after grinding.

4. Add salt to the batter and keep it overnight or for 8-10 hours until the batter gets fermented. You can see that after the fermentation process the volume of the batter gets increased and it becomes puffy.

5. Clean the idli plates with a wet cloth, grease the idli moulds with oil, add batter in the moulds up-to 3/4 of its size.

6. Add 2 cups of water in idli container keep the idli tray in the container and steam idlis on a medium flame for 20 mins.

7. Between you can poke the idlis with tooth pick and check if comes out smoothly if not wait for some more time.

8. Serve this with coconut chutney and sambar.

Notes:

The ratio of rice and urad dal that I usually use is 3:1, It might vary based on the type of rice you use.

It’s not compulsory to use fenugreek seeds and poha. fenugreek seeds helps to aid fermentation process and poha softens the idlis.