Idli

Despite its humble origins, Idli is a quintessential Tamizh/South-Indian food. It’s impossible to enter any restaurant in south-india which doesn’t feature Idli in its menu (unless the restaurant happens to be one of the newer fusion restaurants that are all over India now). The reason for elderly people confidently stepping out of the house to eat “out” is because of the comforting assurance of the availability of traditional Idlis. The idli batter is made of ground par-boiled rice (a healthier substitute to white, polished rice), and urad dhal (which provides protein). The batter is fermented and then steamed into disc-shaped, soft, and fluffy idlis. Thanks to their balance of carbohydrate and protein, idlis are ideal for breakfast. But for people like me, idlis are good for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! 

Idli is yet another comfort food of mine. My mother makes the most wonderfully soft idlis, every single time. She has never had an off-day with idlis. Idli dipped in her onion-tomato chutney is one of my favorite, comforting dishes. I actually have a psychological reason/story behind this attachment. When I was nine years old, my school had organized a medical camp to provide inoculations against typhoid. My parents obviously promptly signed me up for it. After much trepidation and paranoia, I braved through the injection without crying. Just as I was ready to be triumphant about conquering the injection and the disease, I fell ill the very next day. Blood tests confirmed what you might have guessed already - I was down with typhoid. My life is full of such ironies. My body suffers from an auto-immune disorder, which means it generally gets confused between the “good” cells and the “foreign” cells attacking it. So it ends up attacking the good cells every now and then, totally ignoring the bad guys, and so I was down with a severe case of typhoid. Although it sounds funny in retrospect, it was a tough time for my parents back then. But all I remember is this - due to the dietary restrictions, for about 5-6 months, every single day, my lunch and dinner constituted idli with tomato-onion chutney. My parents and the doctor were happy that I was eating well, and I was happy of being served and pampered with this yummy dish every single day. I didn’t complain of monotony, for amidst the fever and everything else, this food was totally reassuring, comforting and loving. And ever since, this association has lived on.

Now that the anecdote piece of this post is over, onto the preparation! My mom’s ratios seem different from Meenakshi-ammal’s. So I’m not sure why or how the idlis still turn out fine, and if there is indeed an optimum ratio. If you know better, please shed light!

Preparing the Idli-batter (Ingredients required: 4 cups of par-boiled rice, 1 cup of de-husked, whole urad dhal, and water; optional - 1 teaspoon of fenugreek seeds)
According to Meenakshi-ammal’s book, every 2 ½ cups of par-boiled rice (idli rice) needs 1 cup of urad dhal to prepare the batter. But my mom’s ratio is 4 cups of par-boiled rice  (idli rice) to 1 cup of urad dhal. She also adds a teaspoon of feenugreek seeds in order to make the idlis extra fluffy and soft. The first two times I tried adding fenugreek, my idli tasted bitter, although my mom’s idli betrays no hint of bitterness. So, I’ve been trying idlis without the addition of fenugreek, and they still come out well. So I am sticking to my mom’s ratio, minus the fenugreek seeds.

1. Soak 4 cups of idli rice rice (rinsed once in water), for 3-4 hours
2. Separately soak 1 cup of rinsed urad dhal for 1 hour (do not soak the dhal along with rice, and take care not to over-soak the dhal). If you’d like to try adding fenugreek seeds, add a teaspoon of it to the soaking urad dhal.
3. First grind the urad dhal by adding a little bit of water throughout the grinding process. Before the advent of automation, the batter was traditionally ground in a heavy, magnified version of a mortal and pestle. Great grandmothers and grandmothers used to slave by physically rotating the massive pestle for hours together. If I were to do that today, my love for idli would quickly wilt. These days, a wet-grinder does the job efficiently and easily. But, a good, powerful mixer/blender can also do the job for you, except you need a little more patience and care to not burn your blender’s motor in your quest to get a smooth batter. I have a wet-grinder and would recommend investing in it, if you anticipate making idlis every month, or every so often.
4. Once the urad dhal grinds into a smooth, soft, gooey, fluffy batter, transfer it into a deep and wide vessel. The consistency of urad dhal batter should not be too thick nor too runny (refer to the picture). If you lift the batter with a spatula and point it down, the batter shouldn’t run or plop down. It should be a sticky (not greasy, but gooey) lump that stays on the spatula and eventually crawls down in about 10 minutes, due to gravity. On average, you need to add about 1 cup of water throughout the 30 minutes window it takes to be ground into this smooth batter (in the grinder).



The consistency of urad-dhal-batter on left, and of par-boiled-rice batter on right

5. Next grind the soaked par-boiled rice. It takes about 45-60 minutes to finely grind the rice (in the grinder). Keep adding water whenever the batter thickens. Roughly, I add about 3-4 cups of water (or more depending on the rice). Don’t add all the water in the beginning - keep adding bit by bit to make sure you don’t make the batter too runny. In the end, the batter shouldn't feel too smooth between your fingers, it should be slightly coarse, like feeling very tiny granules of  sand. The slight coarseness will result in softer idlis. The consistency should be such that the batter falls down in ribbons (refer to the picture). Idli batter that is too thick results in dense and tough idlis, and a batter that is too runny results in flat, and sometimes rubbery idlis. You will get an intuitive feel for the consistency after a couple of attempts.

Fermenting:

1. Once you transfer both the batters into a deep and wide vessel, add two palm-fulls of salt (if your palm is as small as mine, or about 1 - 1 ½ palm-full if your palm is above the 50th percentile :))
2. Thoroughly mix the salt into the batter with your hand. Germaphobes, please don’t pick up a spatula to do this. It’s important to use your hand, for all the useful bacteria and yeast living in it need to be transferred into the batter to ensure it ferments nicely. I actually look forward to squishing my hand in the batter.... it evokes memories of my mom and grandmother preparing numerous batches of batter. However, your hand needs to be relatively clean, of course :).
3. Close the vessel with a tight lid.
4. If you live in India, or in the tropics, or in a moderately hot place, keep the batter in room temperature for about 8 hours, until it ferments.
5. If you live in a cold place, place the batter inside your oven with the oven light turned on. It takes about 12 hours (or more) for the batter to ferment. When the batter ferments it doubles in volume and froths up, so make sure you have a wide plate underneath to catch any spilling. If you don’t own an oven, I don’t know of a reliable method to ferment the batter. Some people place the batter near their furnace, but not sure if it works. You basically need to put together some sort of a small-scale incubator to provide enough heat.
6. Once it ferments, the batter looks like the picture below - frothy and full of bubbles. Gently mix the batter without deflating too much of the air or the bubbles. Sometimes, I find that my batter gets too thick after fermentation. In such a case, I add half a cup of water to dilute it a little. Once you mix the batter, it’s volume comes down to almost its initial state.
7. Store the fermented batter in the fridge - it lasts for about 7-10 days.

Fermented Idli batter

Idli plates

Steaming:

1. You need to own idli-plates in order to steam the fermented batter. Idli plates look like the picture above
2.  Coat the depressions on the idli plate with a little bit of sesame oil (so that you can scoop out the cooked idlis with relative ease)
3. Ladle the batter into each depression on the plates. Give a little bit of room for the idli to puff up while it steams.
4. Take a deep vessel or pressure cooker and fill it with just enough water, so that the water doesn’t touch the bottom-most idli plate.
5. Place the idli plates brimming with the fermented batter into the vessel.
6. Steam (meaning, close the vessel with a lid that releases steam) on high-heat, for 10-12 minutes.
7. Once you take the idli plate out of heat, allow it to cool for 10 minutes, or your idli will peel out unevenly from the plates.
8. The puffed up and fluffy idlis, bursting at the seams, are ready to be served!

Interesting tidbits:
It is said that if the batter ferments more swiftly and easily to become extremely frothy, the more “heat” your hand and body holds. So the success of the fermented batter is dependent on how “hot” you are ;). Mine takes forever to ferment (even in summer), so well, that speaks for itself! But since the preparation of idlis involve so much direct physical touch - starting from the grinding (back in the day) to the fermenting, each person is supposed to impart their unique touch/smell to it. Traditionally, it is called Kai-manam (the scent of your hand, literally). Some people can make anything taste good, even if they make a simple dish out of simple ingredients. Their dish will have something unique in taste that no other person can replicate with the exact same recipe and ingredients. This unique “something” is attributed to the person’s physical touch -Kai-manam.

Lessons Learned:
These are silly lessons really.  But as the pictures show, handling idli batter can get very messy. The sides of the vessel, the counter, and yourself, will wear a liberal splashing of batter. Make sure to wipe the sides of the vessel and keep it clean of batter, for when the batter dries, it powders into dust. And pretty soon, your entire kitchen will be covered with idli powder-dust, which makes cleaning a hassle.

There are  many variations to idli - but each variation is worthy of a separate post. Idlis are usually eaten with a side of milagai-podi (chilli-powder, which isn’t just powdered chilli) mixed with a puddle of sesame oil. Idlis are also eaten alongside sambar, rasam, and chutneys.

Variations:
Instead of 4 cups of idli rice and 1 cup of black gram / urad dal, add 3 cups of idli rice, 1 cup of aval/poha/beaten rice flakes, and 1 cup of black gram.
Some people also add a fistful of old rice (cooked rice that's been at room temperature for more than 8 hours) while grinding the batter. This helps the fermentation process.