soft idlis even in winter

Hi Ladies,

I dont come here to tell about rice and propotion. After grinding the dough, keep the dough in a oven. and close it. You can preheat the oven and then keep the dough in that. the nextday you will get good feremented dough. Try and give me a feed back.

Even you can keep dough in MW, and if you are going tokeep in MW, just warm water for 1 min and then keep this dough in the oven. Try this. surely this will work.

all the best.

Even for making curd you can follow this.

Hi ladies,

after good idlis in summer now we're entering cold weather again. and summer wasn't great this time here. now that i grind for idli batter every week this is what i do: save some fermented batter (about 2 tbsps) and mix it with the freshly ground batter. This acts like a sour-dough and ferments very well. Also i learnt by experience (watching my mom when she visited us this year) that for soft idlis (apart from good fermentation) the batter should be of right thickness. Earlier my batter used to be sort of thick ie. when i pour it into the idli mould it doesn't fall in ribbons (that's the right thickness). Now grinding batter so often i have learnt how flexible the batter should be.. this helps the idli to fluff up well and stay soft.

Latha

DEar Traveller,

I should thank you personally for starting this thread. And Supriya dinesh for sending me this link.

I live in Winnipeg, Canada n temperatures can drop real bad here during winters like -40 n 45s . But it doesnt stay that way throughout winter. Averagely the temeperature just stays aaround - 30 s.

I use sonamasoori rice (raw rice)3 parts 1 part parboiled rice( grace brand) n 1part white broken ulunthu . I soak rice, parboiled rice together n add either 1 handfull of poha(this I ll soak with rice) r cooked rice . I soak urad dhall with 1 tsp of vendhayam. I don ve agrinder n so I grind in mixie which takes around 2 hrs to grind this. I ve to stop in beteween so many times so that mixie doesnt get heated up.

I mix both the mavvu with salt after grinding rice to rava consistency without adding much water n ulunthu to somewhat fuffy consistency. I keep the maavu in two vessels filled upto half. I keep them inside the oven n then I turn the pilot light on n leave it so for 2 days. yes two days. If i grind today in the evening, I ll leave light on till dayafter tommorrow morning n try making idlies in the evening.Some say to switch on oven. I dont know how long I should do it n at wat temperature? should i keep heating it ? I jus fear taht the batter might get cooked if i switch the oven on.

My idlies r not turning out super soft n fluffy . But when i try adding more par boiled rice n less raw rice it jus doesnt get into shape at all. I had to add dry rice flour to even get sumar dosais. My idlies r not spongier r white but my dosas r o.k.
please help by letting me know on how to proceed with fermentation as Iam finding it hard to amke any dish which needs the batter to be fermented. Any help is welcome.

Regards,
Cc

Dear Charu,

Thank you for the thanks:) For the best idli proportion please refer to Chitvish's.

1. I have never used raw rice+par boiled rice combination. So may be that's giving you a harder idli.

2. I have a grinder (ultra table top) so that might be another reason.

3. And also I never switch on the oven before keeping the maavu in it. I find that the oven (below my electric cooking top) is warm enough after my routine cooking.

4. How long do you soak the rice? I soak overnight (i soak around 10 pm and grind only around 10-11 the next morning... so that's more than overnight). This, I believe, already traps the bacteria (or whatver the organism it is) necessary for fermentation. I use the same water i used to soak the grains.

5. If you mean flat idly then that means ulundu proportion is more. My mom felt that the ulundu we get abroad must be export quality so it yields more (after grinding) than the ones we get in India. So she suggested that i use heaped cups of rice and levelled cup of ulundu.

6. Idli maavu when fermented for more than a day do not give white idlies (experience)...

7. After having wonderful 'summer' idlies I have come to a conclusion that 'winter' ones slightly lack the fluffiness.

Hope I'm of some help. I am yet to start idli grinding after the good weather days. I'll post my experience here again.

Latha