Idli and dosa batters #AmINotAwesome

The perfect roti or the perfect phulka is not divisive. Idli and dosa batters are. What’s the proportion of rice and de-husked urad dal? 3:1? 2:1? Which rice? Parboiled rice or raw? What’s idli rice and what’s dosa rice? Methi seeds only for dosa (that they are a must for dosas is unanimous)? Flattened rice or sago, or both or neither?

Here’s my recipe, after scouring the internet, though I am still trying out variations. Remember, I stay in Bangalore and it is October (25 / 19 Celsius).

Dosa batter: Soak 2.5 cups parboiled dosa rice with 1 tsp methi seeds and 1 cup de-husked urad dal with water about a phalange higher, separately for 5 hours. Grind them separately (a high-speed blender works just fine), dal to a fine and fluffy consistency and rice to close to a fine grainy one. Try to work with only the water they were soaking in. Now put them in one vessel, add non-iodised salt and mix well in a gentle, circular motion by hand (apparently, the most critical step to add in some good ol’ bacteria). Before placing them in a warm space for fermentation, ensure the vessels are only half full. Oven worked for me, not the counter space. It takes 15 hours right now.

Modifications for the thatte idli: You can use the dosa batter too, but the idlis will be slightly dense and smooth. I prefer adding 1 cup flattened rice into soaked idli rice (because my local store had it) about 30 min before grinding, and I grind the rice to medium-grainy. This gives nice, fluffy, porous thatte idlis. I tried 50:50 flattened rice and sago but didn't like the texture; it became too grainy and porous. 

Additional note on cooking thatte idli: Cooking is in a pressure cooker without pressure (any container, including rice cooker, would do); let the water at the bottom begin to boil, place the idli plates in the handy carrier in and then the lid, let it steam then for 15 min, switch off gas and then let it be for 5, and then take out the plates. You could have greased the thatte idli plate with ghee before pouring the batter, but one can do without it quite easily, if you let the plate cool down completely and then pry out the idli.

These are not scientific experiments. Just get started with what you have and use this as a guideline recipe. In four tries, you would have had great hot idlis and dosas, and would have perfected the batter you like.

Money, Money, Money

Note: Heavy references to Beat Your Genes podcast content ahead, to show how much I KNOW, likely incorrectly done, but then, you haven’t heard them.

I have been thinking about it a lot for the past few months. Mostly to re-confirm the amount that would be enough to live a productive life after “retiring” from conventional job at 45, so I don’t have to work in an unhappy-making environment (evening calls, so many conversations across so many cultures and time zones, even more money to eat the richest foods, doing corporate speak, all piled up on an addictive, pleasure-trap-seeking, moderately open, introverted personality who otherwise enjoys early-to-bed-early-to-rise; most interesting work would lose out in the cost-benefit analysis after a certain threshold of money). Of course, it has been a month since I left and I still do a reassurance check, now to confirm not just how much I have but also so I don’t save excessively for old age. This balancing act, in addition to all the decisions I have had to take (Sell those shares? Which bank has the best term deposit interest rate? Formula for leave encashment? Ooo, I got more than anticipated in the final settlement!), and anything that needs a change requiring paperwork, has filled my short-term memory space. Oh, not to mention thinking about Man’s insistence to stick it for another two years with the promise that I would never need to do these calculations. All very tiresome and exhausting, but admittedly rewarding, like literally.

A friend commented today I have been talking about property and money a lot. The implication was more about whether I was becoming like everyone else who thinks about keeping up with the Joneses, more “normal”, more “boring”. I was taken aback and bristled a little. But then, my exceptionally disagreeable and moderately emotionally stable brain reminded me we have spoken thrice in the last month after perhaps not speaking since Covid-19 was breaking news. So yes, money has been top of the mind, though for exactly the opposite of said “normal”. I am not so much keeping up with the Joneses, as I am running away from them. Can I please learn to signal that better so I retain my friends?

Of course, the monthly pay check (drug) withdrawal symptom is real. Yes, I had taken the plunge 12 years ago with a lot less, but I am a lot older now. Which means I have had to think worst-case scenarios - adverse health of parents and me, needing to set up a household if Man and I break up (for the umpteenth time, so not exactly being a scaremonger there!) Perhaps even courage is a lot less now that it would be difficult to find my way back into a conventional job I got used to; becoming the best barista at Starbucks would not be terrible (I actually researched it recently, imagining myself at a Blue Bottle equivalent and winning awards) but I had rather not find out how it feels to earn minimum wages for an idiot supervisor who plays petty politics in a windowless workspace that will remind me customer is always right even when they don’t tip. And of course, people around me seem to be talking about it too - property inheritance, wills, property maintenance, moving to Spain under Golden Visa, which is actually interesting (law and behaviours and relationships - what’s not to love!)

So, I need a break here. May I remind people don’t change, not really, even if tempering happens when circumstance change. For example, I may be talking about it more (think less about sharing what’s on my mind?), but I have still done the same thing. Actions, not words.

Of note is how I have felt on two occasions recently the expectation to adhere to notions other people have of me and a need to meet them. When I was leaving, at work everyone wanted to hear excitement from me, in so many different conversations over months. And I had to show at all times more than I normally feel on any given matter (I mean, this is not even close to planning for the Trans-Siberian, is it?), so people didn’t think I was getting fired (I should have timed it better! Maybe I also thought I would get fired, though one has to work at that actually in a large organisation; working on non-scintillating things in a non-excitable manner is not enough), which alarmingly but understandably was important to me (value to the village, etc). It was a long four months. And now this. I must always have interesting conversations based on interesting things I am doing, else I am not the person who opened an art gallery and ran an ultra! Well, I am on it, but a shift at 33 took time - three years for the former, six years for the latter, so at 45, it cannot be shorter.

Also, current focus is on losing weight and getting fit (apparently everything in my left hip is out of sorts, even as my overall form has dramatically improved, according to the good folks at The Practice Room). And since two days back, on a beautiful Gray’s Anatomy: A Fascimile (reprint of 1st edition published in 1850s) to track all that. Femur is the longest, largest, heaviest bone for us and is slightly convex in the front and slightly concave at the back. That will have to work as a signal of my moderately higher than average intelligence, despite cognitive function declines that makes me want to spend less time in organising this rambling post than I would have done before.

And owning property holds zero interest to me for me. I will be shocked if my sub-conscience disagrees.