Urad Dal – Moong Dal – Idly Rava Khotto.

“Urad Dal – Moong Dal – Idly Rava Khotto (Idly in Jackfruit leaves)” ..… Whenever I am in hurry and find it difficult to weave the jackfruit leaves, I always place them in tumblers / paper cups / glasses / bowls and prepare my style khotto / mudo etc. …. Easy way out …. No mess and you get soft yummy khottos with jackfruit leaves flavour intact …. Do try this method, you will love this short cut when you are short of time ……

Here is another mix and match combination with Dals for Idly / Khotto. Adding one more to the many possibilities of combinations for making of Idly. Guess I can’t shrug of the bug that has really caught me on. I have posted many Idly combinations to date, this one is one more combination that has turned out soft and spongy. Here I used my tumbler method by just keeping jackfruit leaves on the inner surface and then pouring the batter to bring it to a muddo / khotto shape. I find this easy as weaving of the leaves is time consuming and I am always in a hurry. These Idly's too can be served with simple dalitoy (A very well know regular GSB / Konkani Saraswat's preparation of Dal) and any coconut chutney. You can always serve Idly’s with any spicy or medium spiced curries too instead of rice. They too turn out to be an awesome combination. I do so many a times. I like Idly and curry combination very much. I have served this Idly with Malbar Spinach And Raw Papaya Ambat a slightly sweetish curry with ground masala to which onion seasoning is added. 

Ingredients:

Urad Dal : 1 cup

Moong Dal : 1 cup

Idly Rava : 3 cups (2 cups if using mixer grinder)

Salt to taste.

Soak Idly rava in plenty of water just before you start grinding the soaked urad dal and moong dal. About 20-30 minutes. Wash and soak urad dal and moong dal together in plenty of water for 4-5 hours. Rinse well and drain off all the excess water. Grind to a fine paste with about 1 cup of water. I use wet grinder method, you can use any method. Add more water if necessary only. The batter should become fluffy and increase in quantity. Remove and pour in a large vessel. Drain off excess water from Idly rava, by gently tilting the vessel. Add the Idly Rava to the urad + moong dal mixture in the vessel and mix well. See that there are no lumps. The batter should be of thick consistency. Lastly add salt to taste, cover with a tight lid and keep aside near a warm place to ferment for 6-8 hours or overnight. The fermentation process defers from place to place. Where the weather is hot it may take lesser time and vice versa.

Once the batter has fermented mix it well once again. Gently pour the batter with the help of a rounded spatua into the prepared tumblers that are lined with jackfruit leaves to ¾ th level only. You should leave gap on top of the molds as the batter will rise when getting steamed. I have used long tumblers and lined them with fresh Jackfruit leaves from the inner side. You can use steel vati / katori / gindla here to get evenly small shaped Idly. Remember to apply oil to the molds before adding in the batter. Applying of oil to the molds ensures that the batter does not stick to it and comes off cleanly without crumbling once the Idly is steamed and cooled a bit.

Keep the Idly steamer with required amount of water to heat on high level. When it reaches full steam, lower the tumblers and gently place in one by one and cover the lid tightly. Increase the heat and steam for 5-10 minutes or till you see steam passing through the sides of the lid, then lower the heat to medium and steam for 20 minutes. Remove and cool a bit. Pull out gently with the help of the stem of Jackfruit leaves. The khotto will come out in one go. If using any other moulds run a blunt knife through the edges on the inner side of the vati / katori and gently flip over and tap it a bit to bring out the steamed Idly in one go. 

** Idly is usually served with sambar / dal / chutney or any spicy curry as an accompaniment. Idly is also served with Hinga (Asafoitida) water though this is almost a forgotten practice nowadays. But this khotto ie Long shaped Idlies in Jackfruit leaves, I served with Malbar Spinach and Raw Papaya Ambat – a sweetish spicy curry prepared adding coconut masala to which onion are used as tempering. I have already posted the recipe of Ambat, will also share the link below of both Ambat and coconut chutney. Please follow the links for the recipe.

** Note: The proportions mentioned above of Rava is when using the wet grinder method. If using mixer then you have got to adjust the proportions as the result of grinding urad dal in wet grinder and mixer are not the same. Wet grinder yields in softer and bulkier quantity of urad when ground were as the mixer does not do the same. So you can decrease the amount of Idly Rava by half to one glass if using mixer grinder method. Ie. 1 cup of Urad dal : 1 cup moong dal : 2 cups Idly Rava.

** Note : Idly Rava is actually rice ground into a rava texture which is available readily in Indian Market. It saves time and effort of grinding the rice. In case you have no access to Idly Rava in your vicinity, you can add rice also. Just wash and soak rice separately in water while soaking urad dal and grind to a grainy coarse texture again separately and mix the two later.  There will be no difference at all in the making of Idly. Idly Rava is used just for the sake of convenience in place of rice.