Truly, madly, IDLY !

You can say all the jokes you want about South Indians, but we will never ever stop eating Idlis. Not for the whole world. No amount of Rajnikanth-kolaveri-kerala nurses unfunny jokes can dissuade us from our traditional food, which continues to be a top favorite across all age groups- from toddlers to politicians. Oh and we are also tea drinkers. It keeps us awake and

and alert you see. It is one of the reasons behind the percentage of South Indian students that knock at the gates of IIT, and the ever increasing theft rate elsewhere  ;-)

Coming back to idlis, even though its batter is available in every nook and corner, it cannot be compared with what we grind at home. The color, smell and everything about it is different. It could probably be because the stores may use baking soda for fast fermentation which is a practice we never do at home. Anyway for bachelors and newly-married-cooking-retarded people (that’s me around five years back), these batter packets are a blessing.

It was on my first grocery shopping trip post marriage that I found out about the idli batter packets and I rejoiced like I won the lottery. I was not even aware of the existence of such a thing mainly because before marriage, I never went grocery shopping. Secondly, hot idlis frequently appeared at the dining table and taken for granted in no time. Thirdly, when Mummy and a housemaid of twenty years are at the kitchen there is no room or reason for a third person to intrude and investigate. Fourthly it was better to eat and leave rather than staying back to ask questions and invite trouble.

It was years later when our baby came into our lives, we started to forego anything that came in packets. This included masalas, batter, processed snacks and other stuff. And then as necessity is the mother of pain-in-the-neck, our next trip to India saw us returning with a brand new grinder. Lifting the grinder weights regularly has made me a mini Mary Kom in terms of biceps. And then came the real trivia. Idli batter is no joke. If you want to make it successfully you need to brush up those math lessons which are collecting cobwebs in some corner of the brain(?). Sixth grade flashback - remember that lesson in ratio and proportion?

So Raw Rice: Urad Dal: Fenugreek = 2:1:(1small spoon). Well, had I understood mathematics in its raw form during my school days, I would have four cooks in my kitchen today asking me what I’d like to eat for dinner. Well, I’ll choose not to talk about what could have happened and focus on not learning mathematics come what may. It takes a while until you can understand that, this formula when followed religiously does not yield soft yummy idlis. Sometimes it can bite on your back by producing idlis that can also be used as stones at the Secretariat march. Idlis are made by ‘experience’, which I would like to rename as ‘sheer luck’. The silver lining of going through all this pain is that, once you grind the batter and keep for fermentation, and it fails at the box office, the same can be used to make dosas. Dosas always come out crisp and yum even if the batter is not in a good mood. This saves me from a lot of batter related stress.

The first time I made idlis, the ones on the lowest rung of idli mould drowned and died.  This was celebrated as a family joke (initiated and marketed by my sister) that my idlis committed suicide. I am secretly planning to throw an idli at her one of these days. 

After a while I mastered the art of making “poo polathe*” idlis. That feeling of licking clean a plate of soft idlis is a form of emotional bliss that can be experienced only by South Indians. Well these idlis are so light on the tummy that it drives us to drink an extra cup of coffee or grab a few biscuits by 11 a.m., but that is not a downside.

So as I sat around pretending to be a master chef, and at other times singing from the rooftop about my newly found culinary skills, somewhere in the background, summer gave way to winter. I found out the hard and bitter way that batter does not ferment in winter. And it is exactly at winter when you really want to devour hot idlis and tea! It took me a lot of effort to stop myself from running to the nearest store and grab a pack of idli batter!  I googled all the culinary blogs and found some real gems which had tips about making idlis in winter. Muscat is as of now at 16 to 20 degrees, which is too cold for idli batter. I tried the water bath method, and then placed it in the oven with oven lights on throughout the night for around 12 hours in total. In the morning I woke up like a mother hen eager to check on her eggs. I opened the oven, and the batter vessel...and... eurekaa!

February. Cool Monday morning. The golden rays of the sun seeped through the window. The birds tapped and murmured against the glass windows. The doves flew past fluttering their wings. The cool breeze tickled the curtains. The coconut oil solidified. On the dining table was the casserole. In it was hot 'poo polathe*' idlis bathing in steam. There was some coconut chutney and a cup of tea for company. Pure bliss. 

*super soft

Picture courtesy:Google