Soft & Spongy Idly (Important Tips Included)

Ingredients:

Idly Rice - 3 Cups

Split Black Gram (Urad Dal) - 1 Cup

Fenugreek Seeds - 1 1/2 Tsp

Cooked Rice - 1 Cup

Salt to taste

(I used my rice cooker's cup for measurement)

This recipe will make about 30 - 35 medium sized Idlis.

Method:

1. Rinse the rice well soak it in enough boiling water. 

2. In a separate bowl add the urad dal and fenugreek seeds. Rinse well and allow to soak in normal water. Rice and urad dal should be kept on soaking for minimum 4 hours.

3. After 4-5 hours of soaking, start the grinding process. 

First grind the urad dal+fenugreek seeds to a smooth paste. While grinding add water in small quantities, if necessary. Use the same water in which the dal was kept for soaking. Now transfer it to a large container.

4. In the same grinder, add the rice in two batches and grind well. Take time and try to grind to a smooth batter. Even after long grinding process, you may feel a slight crumbly texture as you rub a little bit of batter between you fingers, but that's quite fine.

5. Add cooked rice to the ground rice batter and grind again until the batter turns lump free. Then pour it to the urad dal paste.

6. Add salt to taste. With clean hand, mix well until everything is well incorporated. 

7. Cover with a lid and keep on a warm place until it is well fermented. This may take roughly around 8-10 hours.

8. If the batter is well fermented you can notice the change clearly. The batter may have risen well and when you mix with a ladle the batter will be light and fluffy. This means you can make perfectly soft idlis.

9. Keep you idly pot ready. The water should reach boiling point before you place the molds.

10. Grease the molds. Add a ladle full of idly batter to each mold and steam for 15-20 minutes. (You may use a pressure cooker too)

11. Once they are well steamed, remove from the pot and rinse the bottom of the molds in cold tap water. Remove the idlis from molds after about a 5 minutes' resting.

12. Best served with sambhar and/or chutney.

Tips to follow:

* Choose good quality rice. Idly rice is the best, but you can also replace it with parboiled rice and raw rice in 2:1 proportion.

* There are two types of urad dal - split and whole. Both work fine. Just make sure that it is good in quality.

* Mixing the batter with hands promote the fermentation process. So do not skip that step. Instead of normal water, adding coconut water when grinding also helps fermenting.

* Time taken for fermentation may vary according to different climates. If the climate is warm the batter will ferment well within 8-10 hours. If it takes too long to ferment, that means the batter needs extra warmth/time. Roughly it can take around 12-14 hours. Preheat the oven and turn it off. Then place your covered container of batter in the oven. This helps keep the surrounding a bit warm. If you are following that step, make sure your container is heat proof. (Pyrex / Silver utensils are recommended)

* Do not try to make idlis when the batter has not fermented. This will result only in hard, rubbery idlis.