An idli is rather like the Cinderella of south Indian cuisine. Compared to other stalwart favorites like crispy, flamboyant dosa that spills over the plate, and golden, melt-in-the-mouth vadas, an idli comes across as rather humble, even plain. Worse, try eating her by herself and she is, to boot, bland. After all, there’s nothing more to a generic idli than urad dal, rice, and salt. In our home, idli is a perennial favorite. Both Desi (my resident Tamilian) and Jay love ’em and I end up making them almost as often as I make dosas. But as with dosa, an idli batter, while not at all difficult to make, requires a day-long process of soaking lentils and rice and then blending it all up into a batter, then leaving the batter to ferment overnight. With rava idli, like this one I’m sharing today, you can bypass all of this work and bring your batter together in all of 15 minutes of hands-on time. Another 15 minutes of steaming and you’re good to eat. The process of making a rava idli begins out very much like making upma, another popular south Indian tiffin dish, and the ingredients are also much the same. You will need a mold to steam the idlis in that’s usually sold in Indian stores or online as an “idli stand”. If you’re Indian, you are no doubt familiar with this, but if you aren’t, it is usually a three- or four-tier steel contraption with shallow, round, concave indentations where you pour in the batter before bunging the whole thing into a steamer. A few minutes of steaming sets the cakes and you can then slide them out with a spoon or a knife to get those little rounds of moon-like idlis. You can also buy a steamer that the stand goes in, but you really don’t need it. You can simply use a large pot or, if you have one, a pressure cooker. Check to get new recipe updates by email.
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