Here’s A Quick And Easy Recipe For Rice Idli With A Secret Ingredient To Make Fluffy And Soft Idlis

Everybody enjoys soft, fluffy and pristine white idlis to go with their aromatic and flavourful sambhar and coconut chutney. But, when it comes to making these rice cakes, we often end up making them a little sticky or very dry. To avoid future disappointments, here is an easy recipe to make perfect idlis at home in a jiffy and devour them to your heart’s content. One of the best things about idlis is you can give it flavour to your own taste as well.

Recipe of traditional rice idli-

1. Traditionally parboiled rice and urad dal (black gram) are used to make the idli batter. Take one cup of parboiled rice and another cup of regular rice. Rinse the rice with fresh water and strain it.

Next, add 1/4th cup of poha as it helps in making the idli soft and fluffy. Rinse it under running water.

To the rice-poha mixture add 2 cups of water and let it soak for 5 hours. In a separate bowl soak ½ cup urad dal and 1/4th teaspoon fenugreek seeds (optional) in 1 cup water for 5 hours.. Do not drain away the water from the urad dal as it will be used while grinding.

In the grinder jar, add the dal and reserved water and grind it for 30 seconds. Continue to grind till the batter is light and fluffy. Pour it into a vessel.

Drain away the water from the rice-poha bowl. Put them in the grinder jar and pulse them for a minute. Add fresh water in parts and keep grinding till the rice forms a rava-like consistency or is smooth in the batter.

Now, pour the rice batter into the dal batter. Add a teaspoon of rock salt, or you can add it after the fermentation process. Cover the batter with a lid and keep it in a warm environment. Make sure it is undisturbed for 8-9 hours.

The next morning, the batter will ferment and increase in volume. Take note that a properly fermented idli batter will have a sour aroma and tiny air pockets. Now, that the batter is done, you can immediately begin steaming the idlis in the idli mould.

If you want to kick the flavour and health quotient up by a few notches, you can choose to add lentils like moong dal. You can make it with Rava as well. If you want to add some spices, you can choose to saute the steamed idli in a frying pan. Take 2-3 tablespoons of oil and temper it with, chillies, Kashmiri chilli powder, curry leaves, mustard seeds, turmeric and later fry some onions.