how u girls live here with these groceries........grt...

Hi ayurvaidya,

U can buy idli/dosa rice from local grainstore and try that for preparing idlis/dosas, by soaking and grinding it.

Best of luck.

 

Parboiled rice isn't the same as idli rice. Not sure what the difference is, but my friends and I had the same experience. It doesn't work for dosa/adai either. Honestly, you're better off using raw rice for idli than parboiled rice that isn't idli rice. But you don't get the same fluff :-(.

 

Hi ayurvaidya,

did u find any local grocery stores or indian/bangladeshi/pakistani grain store in jeddah? How is ur idli experiment going on? I used to stay in riyadh and i used to buy the idli rice from bangladeshi grain store.

 

Hi Ayurvaidya

I am also using parboiled rice to idly/dosa batter and it works good only, may be the time you kept to soak will be long/short...

try again

 

Or the type of parboiled rice is different. Parboiled is processed and the processing may be different between different brands.

 

hi i am not from jeddah but from another GCC... i would say you can try using white rice... that would be easily available in indian stores, lulu etc... i use white rice from lulu and miy idli,dosa's come out fine...

 

Hi,

Well I am not in Saudi, but soon I can come if My husband get the final offer letter.

What I was suggesting for idli. why don't you mix parboiled rice with white rice and urad dal.

ITS 1 part of white rice, 1 part of parboiled rice and 1 part of white urad dal...soak overnight and than grind and leave it to get fermentated.

Ready to make idli and dosa. for idli better should be thick.

I also want to know if you can tell me, can I carry japmala(chanting mala) and other puja stuff like god pictures, murti, books etc. Can we carry in hand bag or we should put in checkin bag.

please advice.

Garima

 

Hi, had the same problem one year back, I live in Rabigh by the by. I even posted about it here. It must be there somewhere. Anyway, like another person has said, you get Idli rice in Jeddah, otherwise, you can do what I did, I pestered the nice and friendly malayali bakala (grocery Store) owner( I think) and nowadays we get Thanjavur ponni rice in Rabigh also, I also managed to get him to order Boost (secret of my energy). I made sure to tell whomever I know so that the increase in sales of that item will encourage him to keep on ordering it. Otherwise it is back to dropping in the store every two days and asking for it.

The one big problem I found here with groceries is that no store carries everything you want. You have to buy mutton here, chicken there, fish somewhere else, indian vegetables in one place and other vegetables elsewhere if you want optimum quality. It took us a lot of talking to taxi drivers (again malayali's), to find out which store is good for what in the place we live in.

So ask around you will find everything you need one by one as you settle down. Best Wishes.