Soft Idly made of Urad + Rice + Oats.

Pillow Soft Idly ........... Made out of Urad + Idly Rava + Oats and Steamed in tall Steel Tumblers ..........

Wash and soak 1 cup of Urad dal for 4-5hrs. Wash again and drain off the excess water.

Grind to a fine paste (I use wet grinder) with about 1 cup of water. Add more if necessary only. Meanwhile soak 2 cups of Idly Rawa (available in grocery stores) for 30-45 minutes in plenty of water. The rawa will have settled down. Strain the water on top and leave it aside for another 15 minutes for the rice to soak in the water and swell. Powder one cup of oats to grainy texture (similar to rava texture) in a mixer. I used Quaker oats. Keep this ready aside.

Mix the soaked Idly rawa, powdered oats with the ground urad dal batter and mix well. Add salt to taste and leave overnight or for 8-10 hours to ferment. The fermentation process deffers 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 moulds to ¾ th level only. You should leave gap on top of the moulds as the batter will rise when getting steamed. I have used long steel tumblers here to get cylinderical shapes to the Idly. Remember to apply oil to the moulds before adding in the batter. Applying of oil to the moulds 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 heat and gently place in the steel tumblers 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 lid, then lower the heat to medium and steam for 45 minutes. The time for steaming process here is increased beccause the moulds are larger than the normal small vati sized moulds. If using small moulds you can steam for 25-30 minutes only. 

Remove and cool a bit. Run a blunt knife through the edges on the inner side of the tumber and gently flip over the tumbler and tap it a bit to bring out the steamed Idly in one go. Serve the Idly with sambar / dal / chutney or any spicy curry as an accompaniment. 

** Note:

The proportions mentioned above of Urad Dal, Idly Rawa and oats are 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 dal when ground were as the mixer does not do the same. 

While using Mixer for grinding : If you are using mixer for grinding purpose then the proportion of the dals and rice are ….. I have used is 1 heaped cup of urad dal with 1.5 cups of Idly Rawa and ½ cup of oats. Rest method remains same.