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Idli dhosa batter in traditional south Indian style
Posted on: 14/Dec/2018 5:22:55 PM
Indian households often make these soft and spongy tiffin, Idli. It is a very unanimous breakfast recipe of South India and North India.
Often times, we can find a whole batch of this idli batter stored in refrigerator. For most women, they are saviors! And when you really need a satisfying tiffin, there cannot be anything more than these idli or dhosa.
But the real challenge lies with how to make those idlis soft! For this, all you need to focus is on the exact proportion of ingredients, precise way of grinding, and the right duration of fermenting.
Ingredients for Idli/Dhosa batter
- Urad dal – 1 portion
- Idli rice – 4 portions
- Fenugreek seeds – 1 spoon
- Salt – 2 tbsp
Cooking Method
- Take the urad dal and wash it thoroughly in water. Likewise, get the rice washed off all the powdery stuff and dust (if any). This may require 3 or 4 washes so as to get bright, white idlis.
- After washing, add a spoon of fenugreek seeds to the urad dal and soak it in water in a separate vessel.
- Also, soak the rice separately in a vessel.
- These should be kept soaked in water for about 5-6 hours so that they can get ground quick and easy.
- Get your wet grinder washed and cleaned. Set up your grinder with its stone fixed. Turn on the grinder. Now, start with grinding urad dal in it. once you start running it, slowly add the urad dal in batches using hand. Add a little water for grinding.
Tip: to get soft idlis, all you should do is add water in small portions frequently rather than adding it in bulk. For every 8-10 minutes, keep adding small portions of water.
- As it gets ground, you can find the urad dal getting fluffy. Note that the fluffiness of urad dal depends on the quality of the dal. When it is of very good quality, you can notice the urad dal getting increased by 6-7 time of its volume. So, this can yield spongy idlis.
- Grinding urad dal may take about 30 minutes. As this is done, take off the batter and transfer it into a bowl or bucket.
- In the next session, start running the grinder and add soaked rice in small portions. For rice, the water requirement is less, and hence, it is enough if you add little water unlike urad dal.
- Keep adding little quantities of water every now and then until rice turns smooth. At the end, the rice batter should be grainy in its texture. This will give you nice grainy idlis. If you prefer to have smooth idlis, you may grind the rice into smooth batter too.
- Take off the rice batter as it gets done.
- Finally, both the batter s should be mixed. Now, mix both these using hands. It is important to do the mixing with hands as the temperature of your hands will tend to initiate the process of fermentation.
- The right way to ferment the batter
- Transfer the entire batter to a large bucket. Make sure to fill the batter only to half of the bucket, because with fermentation, the volume will increase.
- Keep this bucket in a warm place and allow it to get fermented for about 8-12 hours. This time period of fermentation depends on the climate. When it is summer, 7-8 hours would suffice, but in winter, you may need 10-12 hours of fermentining.
Note: If you live in cold environment, note that salt should not be added before fermentation gets completed. Adding salt can be done when you are about to prepare the dish – idli or dhosa, as adding salt can bring down fermentation in cold conditions.
As you check after leaving through the period of fermentation, you will notice that the overall volume of the batter has got almost doubled. And it will also give away a nice smell of fermentation.
And now your idli or dhosa batter is ready.
Remember that the top portion of the batter can be used for making fluffy idlis and the bottom or last portions of the batter can be used for making Dhosa as it will be crispy and nice.
