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.