Idli Recipe: How To Make Idli Batter At Home

• First of all, pick and rinse the regular rice of your choice.
• Now rinse the poha as well and add to the rice.
• After this, add water and mix rice and poha nicely.
• Soak and cover the rinsed rice and poha mixture for 5 to 6 hours.
• Take another big separate bowl and rinse the urad dal in it. If you have taken the whole urad dal then you need to remove its black husk once the dal is soaked. For removing the black husk, all you need to do is rub the soaked dal in between your palms.
• Rinse the fenugreek (methi) seeds a couple of times.
• Soak the urad dal methi seeds in 1 cup of water for another 5 to 6 hours.
• After 5 to 6 hours, drain the soaked urad dal but reserve the water that you had used for soaking.
• After this, grind the urad dal along with methi seed by adding ¼ cup of the reserved water. You may get a coarsely grinded texture.
• Now add the remaining ¼ cup water and grind until you get a smooth and fluffy batter.
• After this, remove the urad dal batter in a separate bowl and keep it aside.
• Now, grind the rice to make a smooth batter. You can grind the soaked rice in batches so that you don't face much problem while grinding the rice.
• Now mix both the batters together in a large mixing bowl.
• The next thing that you need to do is add salt and mix well.
• At this point, you need to cover and allow the batter to ferment for 8 to 9 hours or overnight.
• Once the fermentation process is over, you will find that the batter has risen up and doubled in size.
• At this point, the batter is ready for making idlis.
• Now grease the idli moulds and add 2½ cups of water for steaming the idli batter.
• After greasing the moulds, pour the batter in them and place the moulds containing idli into a pressure cooker or idli steamer.
• In case you are using a pressure cooker, please make sure that you remove its whistle.
• You'll need to steam cook the idlis for 15 to 18 mins.
• After the idlis are cooked well, take them out on a separate plate and serve hot with sambhar or coconut chutney.

Things To Keep In Mind

• Always use good quality rice and dal for making the idlis.
• Make sure you ferment the idli batter well.
• You can also add 1 teaspoon of sugar into the batter to help in fermentation and this won't make your batter sweet at all.
• In winters, you may need to ferment the idlis for a longer time and therefore, it may take 15-17 hours.
• Adding baking soda into the batter to help in better fermentation can be also done.
• Adding the right amount of water in the batter is a necessary step else the idli won't be as good as you wish them to be.