Idli

Idlies are the most favorite of all the south indian tiffins. Steaming hot idlies any day any time !

Ingredients
1. Idli Rice - 4 cups
2. Whole white ural dhal - 1 cup and a little
3. Fenugreek seeds - 1 tbsp

Steps:
1. wash and soak Idli rice in hot water for 1 hour
2. wash and soak the ural dhal with fenugreek for 45 minutes in hot water
3. Grind the urad dhal without water in mixie or grinder. In grinder it comes much more fluffier and softer than in the mixie. In mixie it takes a longer time, in my grinder it takes about 15 mts. You should not add water while grinding this one.
4. After this is done, remove the ural dhal mavu from the grinder and empty it in a container.
5. Add the rice and grind it, you can add a little bit of water to this.
6. After the rice is ground, add the urad dhal mavu and add salt. 1 spoon for 1 cup of rice and grind together. I do this as I am lazy to mix the salt, outside as it takes quite a bit of effort.
7. Put the entire mixture in a container . The container should only be 75% full. The rest of the space is for the maavu to pongify.
8. Keep the container in the oven. It takes about 8 - 10 hrs to pongify.
9. After the maavu pongifies the top portion can be used for idli and the bottom portion for dosais.
10 . Save the maavu in fridge for future use

Variations:
For folks, who dont have a grinder, instead of using rice, use rice rava. You need not soak rice rava for an hour and all. Just for 10-15 minutes and take it out and mix it with the urad maavu.

For making idlies:
Take the top maavu, add a little water, not too much. grease the idli plates.
Pour the maavu and steam and enjoy the idlies.

For me the joy of eating idlies is worth all the effort !!!

Upma Kozhakkattai

First post in 2009 !!! Yippee... After months of hibernation, I have started to gain enthusiasm in cooking again. Arisi upma is one of my favorite tiffins, upma kozhakkatai is just another form of arisi upma that I love. The traditional way of preparation starts with soaking the rice, drying the rice on a cloth, grinding the rice into coarse powder..... okay thanks to the Indian stores for coarse ready made idli rava, the preparation time is reduced !. Sorry for the bad picture, I was too eager to eat the dish and didnt concentrate on the quality of the photograph !

Ingredients
1. Coarse Rice rava 1 cup
2. Grated Coconut - 1/4 cup
3. Bengal gram dal - 1tbsp
4. Red chillies - 3-4
5. Curry leaves
6. Asafoetida
7. Little bit of pepper powder freshly ground (optional)
8. oil - 2 tbsp
9. mustard seeds- 1/2 tbsp
10. split urad dhal- 1tbsp
11. Water in the ratio of 1: 1.5

1. Take oil in kadai, add mustard seeds when it splutters add the urad dhal chenna dhal, when they are roasted add curry leaves, dried red chillies, asafoetida.
2. Add water and salt and let it boil
3. Add Grated coconut and the coarse rice rava. Mix it well so that it does not form lumps. Different rice ravas may require different amounts of water, microwave a cup of hotwater and keep it ready. Incase you feel that all the water is absorbed and the mixture is getting dry you can add the same. Cook on medium heat, keep it closed for a couple of minutes.
4. When the mixture is cooked , let it cool for a while
5. Make balls and keep it on a idli plate and steam cook the same
6. When the kozhakkatais are done they will have a glassy finish.

Steaming hot kozhakattais are ready !
Enjoy with a dash of ghee on the kozhakkatai and a side of chutney , pachidi or sambhar. I had left over vengaya sambhar and had the kozhakkatais with that.

Optionally you can also soak 1/5 cup of toor dal and coarsely grind it and add it to the rava mixture and cook.