I have been making Idli for 10 years now and it is suprising that I didn't post this recipe much sooner. Anyway that being said,I have been thinking to finish this year with a good blog post and all of a sudden Idli pops in my mind not because of the fluffy Idli batter sitting in my fridge :) or if it is the easiest thing to make for dinner...Sh!!
Here's how I make the Idli
Ingredients
Idly rice -4 cups
Urad dhal - 1 cup
Fenugreek seeds -10
poha or rice flakes - a handful
salt - 3 tsp
Method
Soak the rice and dal separately in water overnight. Add the fenugreek and poha to the dal itself. Next day grind the dal to a frothy texture for about 30 min in a grinder with sufficient water. Transfer to a big stock pot(I use 8.0 Qt/7.6Ltr). Grind the soaked idli rice for about 45 min to a fine paste making sure water is added at intervals until the end as rice has a tendency to become thick if less water is added or too thin if more water is added, so the right amount of water should be added to the rice while grinding. Add salt during the grinding process itself. Once the rice has reached a fine consistency it is time to transfer it to the vessel with the dal. Use your hand to mix the rice and dal batter. Leave the batter out in the big vessel to ferment until next day if it is summer or 2 days if it is winter. Cold winter temperatures does not help with the fermentation process, but what I have discovered is using Tupperware containers helps fermentation greatly during winter.
