Let food be our medicine and medicine be our food
having real food as you baseline, your normal, the thing that you eat the most- back tot he basics foods that have been around for thousands of years that's what our body thrives on.
Idli is most popular and healthy Indian breakfast. It is basically like a steamed rice cakes made with fermented rice and dal. I come from a South Indian Home,and once in a week i mostly have idli or dosa on the plate. We South Indians love idli very much. But I guess if you might get bored if you eat it every week and you may reach that sulking point. I really don't want to reach that point. Idli is very healthy and nutritious and are not hard to make at home. It's a life saver for me when i don't get what to cook for breakfast and my hungry family waits on dining table for breakfast.
Idli is a very healthy and soothing dish but sometime even i do get bored of it. For that I made some modification with that. I tried many varieties of modifications with idli.
I tried green moong dal idli and it came up really tasty and health wise very nutritious.
And I tried it with some veggies, when it came out idli's looked so bright,colourful and beautiful. When I served it to my family they were pleasantly surprised. They absolutely loved it.
If you are looking for an interesting ways to make idli you must try these. Let me share you my experiments with idlis:
Ingredients:
For Batter
1 1/2 Cup Raw Rice (normal rice/pachari)
1 1/2 Cup Boiled Rice (Ushna Rice)
1 Cup Urad Dal
3-4 Fenugreek Seeds (Methi Dana)
Water as required
Salt to taste
For Colour
1 Beetroot (pealed and chopped)
1/2 Carrot (pealed and chopped)
1 Cup Coriander Leaves
1/2 Inch Ginger
1-2 Green Chilli
Instructions:
Take three separate bowls and rinse raw rice, boiled rice and urad dal under water, soak them separately in each bowl with enough water.Add fenugreek seeds in one which urad dal is kept.
Rice and dal have to be soaked for minimum 6 hrs.
After soaking period, take a grinder add raw rice with little water ata time and grind until the rice turns into a smooth batter. Once done, remove the rice into a large container or bowl and set it aside.
Next without washing the grinder add soaked boiled rice and grind it by adding little water at a time into smooth batter. Remove into the same container /bowl holding raw rice batter.
Now Add Urad Dal with little water to begin with and grind till it turn into smooth and fluffy. The volume doubles after grinding
Note: plz Add very small quantities,about a tsp of water each time. Also scrape the sides of the grinder to ensure all the grains of the dal are evenly grounded.
Once the batter is done,remove it into the same container/bowl.
Note: One of the key to get soft idlis is the consistency of urad dal batter. The batter has to be really smooth and fluffy.
With a spatula mix the batter together.
Set it aside for 8 to 10 hrs (preferably overnight).
Next day you will see the batter is doubled it's volume and raised well on top.
Add salt and mix it again.
Batter is perfectly ready for idli.
Now dived the batter in three portions.
Take a blender add beetroot and carrot with some water and salt into it and puree into thick paste. If you don't like the fiber of veggies you can strain the juice and use it in the batter.
Similarly in a blender take coriander,ginger,green chilli and add some water ans salt into it and blend it into nice paste. Add this green puree into another the other portion of batter.
Note:Keep adding little at a time so to get the desired color in the batter and also to make sure that the batter doesn't turn too runny.
I made thee coloured idlis one beet & carrot, other one is coriander and third one is simple.
Now grease the idli mould with ghee or oil. Pour each coloured batter into a mould.
Steam it in a steamer for 15 mins. Then remove it from it and let it rest for a while.
Serve it with Hot Sambar and Coconut Chutney.
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