Instant Kanchipuram Idlis
I remember my best friend's gradmother Patti. Some of the people though they are no more in this world, they will always remain in my heart forever, she is one of them. As a teenager I use to visit my friend's house everyday, infact it was my second home. Patti use to make many Tamilian dishes and I picked up few of them from her, though few of the dishes are forgotten and few I remember. One of the dish was Kanchipuram Idlis. She used black lentils with skin and rice, soaked it over night and she use to ground it on a stone grinder. Then the batter was left to ferment overnight and it was seasoned with salt, some curry leaves, mustard seeds, chana dal, few peppercorn, few broken cashwenuts and 2 pinch of asafoetida. Then the rest of the process remained the same for making the idlis. She served it with coconut chutney and milagai podi which was again homemade.
Here I followed the recipe but since it is an instant idli, it was not kept for fermentation. I used Eno, but soda bicarbonate can also be added if there is no Eno. It helps in instant fermentation and incoperates air in the batter. I added desiccated coconut in the batter as I love it. Also I replaced rice with idli rawa and oats...
For the Seasoning
Ingredients
1/4 tsp Bengal Grams / Chana Dal
1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
1/2 tsp Pepper Corn crushed
Few broken pieces of Cashwenuts
1 tsp minced Green Chillies
Few Curry leaves
2 Pinch of Asafoetida
1 tbsp Ghee
Method
Take a pan and add ghee in it. Let it. Heat add the chana dal, stir it for a minute. Add the mustard seeds, let it crackle. Add peppercorn and few Cashwenuts, stir it for a minute. Add the green chillies and curry leaves. Stir for another minute. Add asafoetida and stir it for few seconds. Remove it from the flame.
For the Batter
Ingredients
1 cup Oats
2 cups Idli Rawa
1/2 cup Split Black Lentils with skin soaked for an hour
2 tbsp Desiccated Coconut
Salt to taste
1 tsp Eno / Soda bicarbonate
1/2 cup Curd
Water as required
Seasoning
1 tbsp Seasam oil
Method
Grind the soaked lentils in a grinder. Remove it in a mixing bowl, add oats, ldli rawa, coconut, salt, curd, seasoning and water as per required to make a batter. It should be dropping consistency. Add eno. Mix it and let it stand for 10 minutes. Take idli moulds and apply seasam oil on it. Add the batter and steam it till done. Serve it with chutney and sambhar.
