Mouthwatering Soft Idli

Idli is a south Indian speciality breakfast. It is a low calorie nutritious food. Very mild and good for you.

Ingredients:

3 C. Parboiled cream of rice (soaked for 4 hours with 1/2-1 c water)

1 1/2 C. Round urad dhal (soaked for 4 hours)

1 T. Salt

Non stick cooking spray to spray the Idli steamer

Method:

Previous evening batter preparation:

1. From the soaked parboiled cream of rice squeeze out as much of water as possible (reserve the water to be used in blending the urad dhal) and keep them separately.

2. Wash and drain the urad dhal. Blend the dhal in a food processor until smooth (use about 1 C. of the squeezed out water from the cream of rice a little at a time during blending; blend for about 4-5 minutes). The blended batter need to be aerated to a fluffy consistency. 

3. Mix thoroughly the blended urad dhal batter with the reserved cream of rice. Now the batter should be the consistency of a pancake batter. Cover and ferment this batter in a warm (80F) place for 12-16 hours. Stir down the batter before making idlies.

4. Spray the idli steamer plates with cooking oil spray. Fill each (idli cup) plate with  (do not over fill) batter and steam cook inside a Dutch oven or pressure cooker (without pressure regulator) for 5-8 minutes . First cook on high for 2 minutes then reduce heat to medium. 

5. Open the steamer and take out the idli pans. Cool these for 1-2 minutes. Using a rubber spatula remove each idli and arrange them on a serving plate.

6. Serve idlies while they are warm. Idlies will taste better if served with onion-vegetable sambar and/or coconut chutney. This recipe will make about 64 idlies. 

Note: If  Idli pans are not available, you may use an egg-poaching  tray for the Idlies.  Elevating the tray from the bottom of the pan with a small metal bowl will allow the Idlies to cook more evenly.  Again there should be about 1 1/2 inches of water covering the bottom of the Dutch oven or pressure-cooker to make an effective steamer.  If an egg-poaching tray is used, you will need to make several runs of Idlies!