Dosai/ Idli useful tips

Photo Courtesy:Priya (my friend)
(contents re-posted for Dosa corner event)

1. When you grind the idly batter, the rice should be ground to a fine sooji rava consistency and not to a fine paste- gives a grainy texture hence prevents the idli from hardening. Urad dal batter should be really smooth and fluffy- it helps the idlis puff up.

2. Fermentation is an important factor. A perfectly fermented batter yields softer the idlis and tastier the dosas.

3. Use a well seasoned griddle for dosas to prevent sticking.

4. If you are going to eat dosas hot and fresh, make thin crisp dosas. Be liberal with oil.If you are going to take it in your lunch box, make soft white dosas. Do not allow it to be crisp. Use less oil. Remember, for soft dosas, it is best to use only raw rice. Add parboiled rice or idly rice spoils the texture.

5. Always remember, idly batter is thick, dosa batter is a little thin and oothapam batter is thinner. If you dilute your idly batter too much, you have hard idlis which are not fluffy. Even if you use a common batter, change the consistency accordingly by adding water and mixing it well.

6. To aid fermentation in cold countries, preheat your oven to 200F and put it off. Place the vessel containing the batter on a plate (to collect the overflown batter in case it pours out) and keep oven closed overnight.

7. You can add a ladleful of old dosa/idli batter to the fresh batter to aid quick fermentation- thnx Falvi

8. In countries/states where you don't get idli rice or boiled rice, here is a useful tip to convert your raw rice (any variety) into idli rice

Tranfer the required amount of raw rice to a container and steam it in a pressure cooker (without adding water to the rice vessel) for 5 minutes. You will see the raw rice convert to parboiled rice/idli rice. Then proceed with making the batter-thnx Subha

9. You can use idli rava instead of grinding rice. Just grind the urad batter and mix with idli rava! However, the idlis will be like the udupi style ones, not like the smooth chettinadu style idlis.

10. Well, if you think all this is too much of an effort and really time consuming, you should try Gitz idli mix.. it works!- thnx Priya

This post goes to Padma's Dosa corner event