Idly/Idli, the popular South Indian dish is a healthy dish, free from oil and spice. Being a household dish in South India, recipe for it is well-known. Most people love to prepare and have Idly/Idli for breakfast or in the evening. Idlies taste great with well-prepared Sambar or Chutney. Most people love to have Idli with sambar.
Idly/Idli with Sambar
Idly Ingredients :
- Urad Dal / White Lenthils – 1 cup
- Idly Rawa or Rice Rawa (Semolina) – 2 cups
- Salt
How to Prepare:
1) Wash and soak Urad dal in water for 4-5 hours. Grind Urad dal with water in a wet grinder until it turns thick paste to form Urad batter.
2) Wash the Idly/Idli Rawa or Rice Rawa; drain out the water. Add washed Idly Rawa and Salt to the Urad dal batter and mix well.
3) Leave the batter to ferment overnight. Proper fermentation will increase the volume of the batter almost 1 1/2 times of that of original batter. If batter is not fermented, Idly/Idli will not turn fluffy and soft.
4) Next day morning prepare Idly/Idli with the help of Idly trays. Grease the Idly trays moulds with Oil or Ghee. Pour 1 ladle/big spoon of batter in each of the moulds. Fill all the moulds. If one does not have Idly/Idli cooker, use normal pressure cooker to cook the Idlies. Place the Idly trays in a outer cooker container partially filled with water (obviously with sufficient gap between Idly stand and water level).
Cook these Idly/Idli for 15 min (without placing the cooker whistle) in medium flame.
Open the cooker container and take out the Idly/Idli stand from the cooker and keep it aside for just a minute. Now scrape out the Idlies from the tray with the help of a spoon one by one.
Serve hot and fluffy Idlies with Sambar or Chutney.
Sambar :
The Sambar whose recipe is given below gives the same taste as your favorite hotel or fast food Sambar. This Sambar tastes good only with Idlies. I have not used the sambar powder to prepare it. Though the process may be lengthy, the effort is well worth it. Once you try this Sambar at home, I feel you will not prefer to prepare any other kind of Sambar to go with Idlies.
Sambar for Idly/Idli
- Tomatoes – 2
- Onions – 2
- Toor Dal – 1/4 cup
- Coriander Leaves / Cilantro
- Curry Leaves
- Ghee / Clarified Butter -1 tsp
- Jaggery – 1/2 tsp
- Salt
- Bengal Gram Dal or Channa Dal – 5 tsp
- Urad Dal / White Lenthils- 2 tsp
- Coriander Seeds – 1 tsp
- Tamrind – 1 small Lemon sized
- Cumin seeds or Jeera – 1 tsp
- Cinamon or Dalchini – 1 inch
- Cloves or Lavang – 2
- Red Chillies – 5-6
- Grated Coconut – 1/2 cup
- Oil – 3 tsp
- Ghee / Clarified Butter – 1 tsp
- Mustard Seeds – 1/2 tsp
- Urad Dal / White Lenthils – 1/2 tsp
How to Prepare:
1) Cut the Tomatoes into cubed sized pieces and Onions lengthwise.
2) Heat Ghee in a frying pan, add just the Onions and fry until it turns golden brown. Keep aside.
3) Cook the Toor Dal soaked in sufficient water in a pressure cooker until you hear 4 whistles. Leave it to cool. Once the Dal is cooled, grind the Dal into smooth paste in a mixer grinder.
4) Heat Oil in a frying pan. Add all the above Masala paste ingredients (except grated Coconut) and fry until the Dals and the ingredients like the Coriander seeds and Dals turn golden brown. Leave it to cool. Take a mixer jar, add all fried ingredients, grated Coconut, a little water and grind into smooth paste.
5) Take a cup of water in a cooking vessel, add chopped Tomatoes and cook for 3-4 min.
Once the Tomatoes are done, add fried Onions from Step 2 and cook for 2-3 min. Add Curry leaves.
Then add ground Toor Dal from Step 3, Jaggery, Salt and cook for 5-6 min.
Now add ground Masala paste from Step 4 to this mixture and cook for 10 min. If you feel the Sambar is too thick add little water and cook.
6) Tempering: Heat the Ghee in a frying pan, add Mustard seeds. Once the seeds splutter, add Urad dal. Fry Urad dal till golden brown. Add this to the Sambar.
Garnish with Coriander leaves.
Now Sambar is ready to serve with Idly/Idli.
