Rava Idly / Steamed Semolina Cake ~ My Kitchen Experiments

Truly speaking, I never tasted rava idly neither at any restaurant nor at my home. My Mom prepares only instant rava dosa and till now she haven't prepared rava idly at home. But I have tasted rava idly at few of my relative's and friend's marriage functions.

As a typical food blogger, I want to try this recipe too and post in my website. I have tried few methods many times from the Internet but all the time I ended up with getting only hard rava idlies. I was not able to figure out what went wrong each time. After little frustration, I stopped trying it for a while.

Last month, When I was looking for idly batter to prepare breakfast, I found the batter was not sufficient for making idlies for both me and my husband. So, the idea of making rava idly came again to my mind and started instantly with the ingredients what my mom uses to make rava dosa. Additionally I have added seasoning with channa dal and reduced the water quantity to make the batter thick for preparing idly. It came out very well. It was soft and porous. After that with the same measurement I tried and results were good each time. The husband who is not very fond of rava idly finished everything what I served him and asked for extra idlies. :-) What else I need than this?

Basic Information:
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Makes: 13-15 idlies

Ingredients:

Rava / Semolina - 1 and 1/2 cups
Sour Curd / Sour Yogurt - 1 cup
Water - 1 cup or more to make thick batter
Salt - to taste
Coriander leaves - 3 tablespoons, finely chopped
Oil - 3 teaspoons
Green chillies - 3 nos, finely chopped
Curry leaves - 2 string, finely chopped
Mustard seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
Channa dal - 1 tablespoon
Asafoetida - a big pinch
Eno Fruit Salt - 1 teaspoon (See notes below)
Cashew nuts - 10-15 nos
Ghee - 2 teaspoons

Method:

1) Heat ghee in a kadai/frying pan. Throw cashew nuts and fry till they become slight golden brown. Remove from pan.
2) Reduce the flame and add the rava in the same pan with the remaining ghee. Roast till the rava releases nice aroma and becomes slightly golden brown. Transfer the rava to a wide plate immediately and allow it to cool. Turn the flame off. Don't let the rava in the same kadai/ frying pan.

3) When the rava is cooled enough to room temperature, Transfer it to a bowl and add beaten curd and salt. Mix well. Now, slowly add water till you get slightly thick batter consistency.
4) Add coriander leaves and mix well. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes.
5) Meanwhile, heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds when it is hot.

6) Add channa dal and fry till it turns golden brown. Immediately add finely chopped green chillies and curry leaves. Add asafoetida and turn the flame off.
7) Now, check the prepared batter. If it is too thick, add more water and make idly batter consistency and then add seasoning. Otherwise, directly add the seasoning to the prepared batter and mix well.

8) Heat the idly mold pan in the stove with sufficient water. Grease oil in the idli molds and keep cashew nuts in center of it. It is just for decoration purpose. You can skip this if you don't have cashews at hand.
9) When everything is ready, add eno fruit salt and mix well. You can see the batter is frothing well.

10) Immediately adding the eno fruit salt, pour the batter into the prepared idly mold’s and keep inside the idly pan.
11) Steam it just for 7-10 minutes. You can also check it by inserting a tooth pin inside and see it comes out clean.
12) Transfer the idlies to the serving bowl and serve hot with your favourite chutney.
13) We enjoyed it with coconut chutney and tomato onion chutney.

Note:
1) You can either use sour or normal curd. It is based on your taste.
2) Add grated carrot or other vegetables for variations.
3) If you have more batter, divide them and add eno fruit salt just before steaming idlies. This is very important as the softness of the idlies purely depends on this.
4) You can also add an extra teaspoon of eno fruit salt. Based on it, the outcome will be very soft and porous.