Idly

Ingredients
Idly rice – 4 cups
Urud dal – 1 cup

 Feenugreek seeds – 1 tblsp
Water and salt

Preparation
Soak urud dal and fenugreek together and rice separately for 3 to 4 hrs. Grind Urud dal first to a very smooth texture batter. If you put a drop of it in water it should float. Then grind rice to smooth texture batter. Mix it with urud dal batter and add salt. Mix them well and ferment overnight.Mix well before making idly. Pour the batter in Idly plates and steam it for 10 min. Nice aroma of Ildy makes sure that is done. Dip knife in water first and then in Idly. It should come out clean. If batter sticks to knife then idly is not cooked so steam it for another 5 min. Serve hot with sambar, Idly podi or chutney. My favorite is mutton kurma!

Note:

1. Grease the idly plates with oil so that when taking out all comes out clean. 
2. Show back side of idly plate in running water for few seconds and then remove them with idly spoon it will come superbly. Because most of the time when you remove the idly from plates when its too hot it might stick to plates here and there.
3. You can also take 2:2 ratio of raw rice and Idly rice.
4. You can use the same batter for Dosa, uttapam, Paniyaram..etc
5.  Add water to batter and make it thin for dosa. When you pour idly batter from ladle it should fall slowly where as for dosa it should fall freely.
6. You can add fist full of cooked rice or aval while grinding for a more soft idly.
7. While grinding dont add more water and make thin batter, it will not ferment well and Idly wont come out well. You can always add water before preparing Idly or dosa to get right consistency. So while grinding make sure not to add more water.
8. If you are preparing batter for only Idly then grind rice to slightly coarse texture.   
9. Keep batter in big container as after fermenting the quantity will increase.You need to beat the batter well with laddle before making Idly or dosa.