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.

Cantaloupe-Banana Smoothie

I know, why act all pompous and call it smoothie when it’s just a milk-shake? Yeah, but doesn’t the term “smoothie” sound cute, funny, and babyish? I think some little kid at some point called a milk-shake a “smoothie” (“Mommy, I want that smoothy-smoothy drink”), and the dad who overheard it decided to revamp the term milk-shake to smoothie, because the people of this land always crave to establish their own unique identity. If the rest of the world calls something by a certain name, the people here will go to any lengths to rechristen it and adapt it to their ways.

So well, smoothie or milk-shake, the preparation of this drink cannot be more intuitive and easy. Of the several dreams and inane thoughts I have, starting a smoothie place used to be one such brainwave. It’s ridiculously easy to mash together a bunch of different combinations of fruits, add a splash of milk, cream, or yogurt, a bit of sweetness, and a few nuts or extra flavors, and you get an endless array of “healthy” drinks that people never tire of. Every time I wait in line at Jamba Juice, I sigh.

Every so often, I ambitiously buy a cartload of fresh fruits thinking that I would religiously eat them every single day. But time has a way of playing tricks on us. By the time I remember to pick out one huge fruit from the fridge, an unpleasant sight awaits me. I face an ultimatum posed by the fruits - eat us within the next two days before we hit the road to rapid decline. And so, driven by such desperation, I plonk all the assortment of fruits into a blender, pour some milk, add a dash of honey, give everything a whir, and I have four glasses of filling smoothie for breakfast and pre-dinner nourishment.

This time I picked a cantaloupe and watermelon, envisaging eating cubes of them after dinner. When I didn’t see that happening for the first two days, I decided to be proactive. The result was a cantaloupe-banana smoothie.

Ingredients:

1. Half of a medium-sized cantaloupe (peeled and cubed)
2. One banana
3. 4 cups of milk (or more depending on how thick you like your smoothie)
4. 1 teaspoon of chocolate powder (I use Ovaltine)
5. 1 Tablespoon of honey (optional; skip, if you like your smoothie to be a little less on sweet)
6. 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (optional)

Preparation:

Dump everything into a blender and puree till smooth.

As I mentioned, the adaptions are numerous. Get creative! I always like adding banana to most smoothies because I like the texture, the flavor and yummy consistency it brings to the drink. At one point, inspired by Anand’s words, I used to add a spoon of protein powder instead of chocolate powder. I could then call it a fruity-protein drink. 

You can also add yogurt along with a bit of milk, and you get Lassi! We tried cantaloupe lassi (without banana) recently, and it came out decently. I garnished the Lassi with a teaspoon of cardamom powder, and it tasted really good - almost like dessert! 

Also, I typically don’t use citrus fruits like orange, lemon, grapefruit etc. I fear that the acidity would curdle the milk. Berries and bananas are perfect for smoothies. Without the chocolate and the honey, a glass of this smoothie is a nutritious and filling drink. It’s a perfect and easy breakfast for non-morning people like me who have barely enough time to get ready and rush. But this is also an easy way of adding calories - just because something has healthy ingredients doesn’t make the resulting output always healthy. Everything in moderation - that’s the mantra!

Butternut Squash Soup

Butternut Squash was again one of those fruits that I didn’t know much about when I first encountered it in the grocery stores here. I realized it was in the pumpkin family, and that was basically it. Later, I observed my aunt make a delicious soup with it, and I caught on to it. I was glad I could pick one more different fruit from the store and know what to do with it, and not fall back on the same old boring ones.

I love butternut squash for its sweet, buttery taste. My only gripe with it is - it’s difficult to cut! I am one of the most clumsiest people you’ve ever known. I am especially so in the kitchen, having inflicted several wounds and burns on myself. I used to always sport a band-aid on my hand/fingers that band-aid sort of became my perpetual accessory. So I resisted buying yams, beets, butternut squash and other such tough fruits and vegetables, until Anand came into my life and showcased his excellent fine-motor skills - something I lack terribly. He is extremely dexterous with the knife, and can finely dice vegetables and fruits like a professional chef. He is my kitchen-knight! I abandoned my dreams of owning a food processor the minute I sensed both his talent as well as passion. If he is a pro, his dad is a much greater pro - a champion vegetable and fruit dicer!

Anyway, I digress. So, I finally arrived at a point where I could buy any vegetable/fruit, unmindful of the peeling, cutting and dicing involved. Butternut squash has hence become a favorite at home. So I’ll get onto the preparation of soup (adapted from my aunt).

 

Ingredients:

1. A medium-sized butternut squash (peeled and cubed)
2. Two tomatoes - cubed
3. A piece of ginger
4. Two cloves of garlic - peeled
5. 2 teaspoons of cumin powder
6. 2 teaspoons of freshly ground black pepper
7. Salt to taste
8. ½ cup of milk or cream (optional)
9. a sprinkling of grated cheese (any cheese of your liking; but this is again optional)

Preparation:

1. Pressure cook (or ordinarily cook) the butternut squash, tomatoes, ginger and garlic, till the butternut squash is tender. In order to generate some vegetable broth, add an extra cup of water while boiling/cooking. A rule of thumb: add water to cover the veggies/fruit, and then add a cup or two more (if you want to save some stock, or if you like your soup to be broth-like).
2. Allow the cooked fruit/veggie to cool
3. Blend the cooked fruit/veggie in a mixie/blender using water from the resulting stock
4. Transfer the blended, orange-y goodness to a saucepan on medium-heat.
5. Add required amount of salt and the teaspoons of cumin powder.
6. If you want to thin the soup, add the remaining stock. And more water, if you prefer. The consistency of soup is totally to your preference.
7. Reduce the heat to low. Stir occasionally and let the soup come to a boil.
8. Add ½  cup of milk or cream at this stage (optional). I add 2% percent milk, and it still does a wonderful job of imparting a creamy texture to the soup
9. Heat the soup for about 5-10 minutes and switch off the heat
10. Add some ground pepper, and sprinkle some grated cheese (due to the spiciness and warmth of the cumin and the bite of the pepper, pepper-jack cheese goes well as it contributes a bit more spice and flavor. Or you can go with the simple cheddar or swiss. Or you can go all fancy with gruyere, fontina...I don’t think parmesan will go well with this)

Perhaps due to my association of soup with comfort, and comfort with rasam, I tend to go with cumin and pepper flavors while making soup. The combination adds so much warmth and spice that they are ideal companions to rely on when you battle a long tiring day, or need some warmth and pick-me-ups during cold, gloomy, bleak days. A bowl of this soup is rich and hardy, and will have you full and satisfied. Dip some grilled/toasted/garlic bread/any bread along with it, and you will look forward to a nap after the meal! 

Adaptations:

I add tomato to the soup because it is universally a good sauce/soup base. Tomatoes brings volume to the soup and complements the sweetness of the squash with its tangy-ness. My aunt also adds half an onion - red or yellow. In addition to boosting the soup further, the familiar blend of onion+tomatoes+ginger+garlic assures the Indian tongue that the strange looking orange concoction that unappealingly resembles carrot pulp, is likely to taste good :)

The cubes of butternut squash can also be roasted in the oven with a little coating of olive oil, at 400 F for 20-25 minutes. Allow to cool, and puree with water/vegetable stock. Then follow from step 4. This definitely tastes much yummier.

Since butternut-squash is in the pumpkin family, it comes close to tasting and looking like one of our familiar Indian gourds. So cubes of butternut squash can even go in Sambars. The slight sweetness makes it all the more better.

Rhubarb Coffee Cake

After a lapse of two weeks since the making of the upside-down cake with the rhubarbs, I decided to get out of the rut and finish the remaining gifted rhubarbs by making another cake recommended by Pete - Rhubarb Coffee Cake. Contrary to belief, a coffee cake doesn’t necessarily contain coffee in it. I deduced that Coffee-cakes are those served with a cup of evening coffee/tea/chocolate, and hence the generic name.

This was a really easy cake and it turned out quite satisfactorily. This is again Pete’s mom’s recipe, so I am not going into any fine details to divulge the exact recipe. But this is easy enough for most bakers - novice and experts. 

The rhubarbs are poking out

 
Overall Steps:

1. Peel and dice rhubarbs (about 1.5 - 2 cups)
2. Prepare your version of sponge-cake batter, or any basic cake batter (main ingredients needed: butter, sugar, eggs, all-purpose flour, baking soda, and vanilla extract; for a moist and soft cake, some variations add milk or buttermilk)
3. Gently fold/mix the rhubarbs into the batter (Do not vigorously mix, for you will upset the fluffiness and deflate the air in the batter; remember to not over-mix the batter after the addition of flour)
4. Transfer to a buttered cake pan.
5. Mix ¼ cup of sugar with 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar on top of the cake batter (this step is optional, and the proportions are subjective. It depends on how much sugar and cinnamon you would like on your cake).
6. Bake at 350 F for 45-50 minutes.

I'm not a graceful cake-tester as the huge cut shows

 

 I liked how this cake turned out - simple and a little different, owing to the sour rhubarb and spiciness of the cinnamon. The cinnamon sugar offered a nice crunch and sweetness with every bite. But Anand didn’t like this cake as much as the upside-down cake, although both cakes are quite similar. Well, that is the rule of thumb between us - If I like something, he is likely to not like it, and vice-versa ;). 

Lessons Learned:

I didn't mix the sugar and cinnamon together before sprinkling on the cake. And I didn't use a sieve or strainer to evenly sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar. It would have been better had I had the patience to go over both the steps. You can see a clumsy streak of cinnamon on top, and none at the corners of the cake ;).

Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake

I hadn’t the slightest clue what a Rhubarb was until recently. Rhubarbs are perennial plants that have woody stalks and thick fleshy leaves. The leaves are usually not used for cooking (as far as my limited knowledge). Instead, the woody red and green stalks are used in cakes, tarts, pies, and sauces. Rhubarbs are extremely tart, so they taste good when paired with sugar/sweet.

Picture courtesy

One of Anand’s colleagues, Pete, generously gave us a bag of freshly picked rhubarbs from his thriving garden. Of course, upon receiving the bounty both of us thanked him, and then blinked, for I didn’t have the foggiest idea of how to work with them. Being the kind man that he is, Pete gave us four of his mom’s lovely rhubarb recipes to help us out. Two recipes were for cakes, one for a crisp (or crumble), and the other for an oatmeal-rhubarb bar. Of course, we picked the two unhealthiest cake recipes (both of which were also highly recommended by Pete). Thank you Pete! We really appreciate your gesture.

The first one I tried was a Rhubarb-upside-down cake. Since this is our friend’s authentic family recipe, it’s obviously not right to paste the exact recipe here. But I will mention the basic steps/ingredients required (which is common knowledge in the baking world), so those of you who are so inclined can loosely adapt it. 

For some reason, the picture refuses to appear rotated here. So it is indeed upside down

 Basic steps:

1. Prepare your version of sponge-cake batter (cream together butter, sugar, eggs, and milk; add to it sifted all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, bit of salt, and vanilla extract).
2. Peel and dice rhubarb - you need approximately 4 cups of diced rhubarb
3. Butter a cake pan. Alternately layer the diced rhubarb, and some sugar (or marshmallows). Form about 2 layers each of rhubarb and sugar/marshmallows. (I had only 1 layer of each, but I have a feeling 2 layers would have tasted better)
4. Then add the cake batter on top.
5. Bake for 45-50 minutes at 350 F
6. When the cake is done, allow it to cool for 30 minutes. Then gently reverse the cake onto a plate.

Lessons Learned in Baking:
These are general lessons learned in baking. While preparing most cakes, it is of utmost importance that both the eggs and the butter are at room temperature. I never paid attention to this at first, but later realized (thanks to Ina Garten) that it makes all the difference in the world between a fluffy cake and a tough one. Apparently eggs take about 6 hours to reach room temperature. If you’re like me, you are likely to not plan ahead, or remember to keep the eggs out in time. In such a case, drop the egg/s into a bowl of warm water for about 10-15 minutes (hot water would cook the eggs of course). Similarly, if you forget to keep the butter out, heat for 20 secs in a microwave (20 secs for 1 stick of butter). I heat in increments of 10 secs till the butter becomes soft. Do not melt the butter or make it runny. It is important that the butter “creams” with the sugar, and then with the eggs. If you are an aspiring baker, invest in a hand-mixer/beater. You can get an affordable hand beater for $15. It is a valuable tool to help you beat eggs, make meringues, and cream butter and sugar.

Another thing I learned - over-beating/mixing is not always good. I thought the more you whipped the batter, the more fluffy and light the cake would be. It’s only true in the “creaming” stage - where you beat the butter, sugar and eggs (in that order). The more you cream, the better. But once you add the flour, do not over-beat. The more you beat/mix, the flour develops gluten and the cake will turn out tough and dense like bread. Mix just till the flour is incorporated. The same concept applies for cookies.

Third lesson - do not keep opening the oven to test/admire your cake. The oven light serves that purpose. The more you open the oven (at the early stages of baking), the more heat you keep releasing, and your cake won’t rise or bake properly.

Adaptations:
If you are a pure vegetarian and avoid including eggs in your diet, fret not, you can still bake fluffy cakes. Ground flax-seed is an excellent (and healthy) substitute. The equivalent ratio is:
1 egg = 1 tablespoon of flax-seed powder + 3 tablespoons of warm water.

I beat this mixture and then for extra measure heat it in the microwave for about 20-30 secs, and beat it again. This will result in a gooey egg-like consistency. Although this mixture won’t “cream” as well with the butter and sugar, it is still a good enough substitute.

With regards to this rhubarb-upside down cake - I used brown sugar instead of white sugar/marshmallows between the layers of rhubarb (I used ¼ cup of brown sugar between each layer). I thought brown sugar would caramelize nicely, and I had some stock that I wanted to use up. I also cut down on the amount of sugar, for both Anand and I don’t like cloying sweetness. But we realized that to sufficiently cut down the tartness of the rhubarb, you do need plenty of sugar - about ¾ cup each layer (this is another lesson learned). It’s therefore not healthy, and should be eaten in moderation :).

Anand claims this is the best cake I’ve baked (he single-handedly finished the entire cake). A rare compliment, thanks to Pete’s mom. But I am not convinced, and am a bit frustrated that he picked this cake of all the other fancy ones I slaved over. I didn’t like the tartness of the rhubarb, and would recommend that you cut down on the amount of rhubarb used. But if you’re one who likes tart sweets, then this is just the right dessert for you!