Idli Sambar- Rice cakes in Lentil Soup

Idli Sambar is one of the Universal foods that has made its impact globally. Traditionally a South Indian staple, Idli Sambar is now a known dish in all parts of India/world and no longer a madrasi( As all south India was Madras to us when we were small) Staple. While we were growing up, eating out was more coz of necessity than whim. My mom never said that I am bored to cook and I also need a break, today we will take out food from the restaurant. There were some meals that were only one pot meals, like khichadi, theplas or pithla-bhat. Pizza and Pasta and even soups were non existent, they were only introduced to us in mid-80's. There was  a time when we visited my uncle in Delhi. My cousin who was working at that time, had brought pizza's for us for dinner. That was my first time ever tasting  Pizza. Never before in my all those 8-10 yrs of life had I seen a Bread disc that big with goodies on top. How ignorant and naive were we to the cocoon my parents had woven around us. Exploring the world, food and travel came much later in our lives. We were a content middle class family of working class Bombay.

Restaurant was a HOTEL to eat in and there were some kid friendly menu's like Idli Sambar and Medu Vada dunked in Sambar. Whenever we went shopping we were bribed to behave and cooperate. If all went well, we were treated to a eat in at Hotel and mostly it was Idli Sambar for my brother and Medu Wada dunked in Sambar for me. As time went by , my mom started making them at home and we were allowed to have any number of these rice dumplings or cake or Idli. It was served with white coconut chutney also, but I am not great fan of coconut and so are my munchkins. So we kind of skip it altogether.

To make Idli;

2 cups rice or idli rava

1 cup Urad dal

2 tbspn Oil

Salt to taste

 Soak the rice and urad dal in water for 6-8 hours. If using idli rava skip soaking the rava; soak only the dal and then grind it fine into a smooth paste, use the water from the soaking if needed. remove this in a bigger vessel, then grind the idli rava or soaked rice and remove it in the same vessel as the grinded dal. Mix the grinded dal and rava with your hand. This is because the heat of your palms will help in fermenting the batter faster. Then cover this vessel and keep it in a warm place to ferment and rise up. Take  a bigger vessel and fill the batter only half way as the batter will rise and double in size. After the rising, add the oil and the salt to the batter and mix with a spoon. Grease the idli stand with some oil and steam these idli's for 10-12 minutes.

Enjoy the steamed idli's with sambar and chutney or make masala idli.

Making Sambar

For the exact recipe, you guys will need to order Pedatha's book from Pritya Books. But since I am so giving , I will post the recipe which I tweaked to suit our tastes here.

You will need;
1 Cup Toor dal, Boiled with little Turmeric and Hing and mashed well
1 small Eggplant, chopped fine
1 Onion
2-3 Cloves Garlic
1 Tomato chopped
1 Small Carrot
1 tbspn Tamarind Pulp-
**Soak a coin sized ball of tamarind in warm water for 10-15 mins and squeeze and use the pulp. Alternatively you can use the Tamarind concentrate but use about 1 Tspn a sit is really very tart.
1 tbspn MTR Sambar Powder
Salt to taste
Little Jaggery/Gur
1 tbspn Oil

Tempering;
1 Tspn Oil/Ghee
1 tspn Cumin/Jeera
Few Curry leaves

In a pot heat some oil, add the onions and the eggplant and the tomato and saute for a minute. Then add the Crushed garlic and  carrots and enough water to cover the veggies. After the veggies are fully cooked and mashed, add the Sambar Powder and salt and the Tamarind Paste. Lastly add the cooked dal and Gur and bring it to a boil. Simultaneously prepare the tempering. Heat the ghee in another pan, once hot, add the jeera and the curry leaves and then add this tempering to the dal mixture. Garnish with Cilantro and serve hot with Idli, Dosa or rice.

Garlic Pullapart rolls

 This Mothers day would always be special for me. Number one reason being that my younger munchkin has grown to be a big boy. He demands that no one call him a baby yet he will always be our sweet baby. This year he, brother and his Dad made these rolls for our dinner. They also made soup to go along with it and gave this Mom a much needed break to catch up with other activities and pending projects calling her name. Since we all know by now, Mr. Ash needs some initial help in the kitchen, I kind of made the dough and supervised the work, literally being the BOSS of the house for one day!!! We believe in equal opportunity work, so no one wears the BOSS HAT in Ashland. We all have our assigned chores, yes I am talking about the kids too. I was brought up with the belief that you start young, so cleaning the room, picking up after meals and setting the table, putting away folded laundry in its proper place are some of the chores that my Munchkins are allotted to do. If they are lazy to do it today, the work multiples; still they do it. Simple and easy and works best. So this Mothers Day made me feel good and happy that all the past years that I was judging my capabilities of being a good ma, and making my kids do their own work was really not needed. They will work better if they are used to this when its time for them to fly out this nest and build their own little nests. Their better half's will most certainly Thank Me.

 

 For the dough,

Prep Time; 10 mins to mix the dough

2-3 hours for the dough to rise first time

1 hr approx for second rise

1.5 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup All Purpose flour

1 Tbspn dry active Yeast 

1 Tbspn Sugar and 1/2 cup warm water to bloom the yeast

Seasoning

1 Tsp Dried Rosemary

1 Tsp Garlic powder for the dough

+ 1 Tbspn dry garlic powder for dusting

1 Tsp Salt for dusting

2-3 Tbspn Olive Oil and 

water or milk as needed to make the dough

In a bowl, take the dry active yeast, sugar and warm water and mix well. Keep it aside to bloom for 10 minutes. The mixture will be frothy, if the yeast is active. If the yeast is old discard the mixture and get fresh yeast. I always prefer to check the yeast then move on to the dough.

In a mixing bowl, take the flour, add the seasonings, garlic powder, rosemary and little oil to start the mixing, as you move along making the dough, add the oil and knead into a soft dough. Cover with the plastic wrap and let it sit in  a warm place. I preheat the oven to 200 Degree F and then shut it off. Then place the bowl with the dough to rest and rise for a good 2-3 hours. I have never experienced problems with dough rising not enough. When the dough doubles in size, Punch out the air from the dough and take small balls and roll it into small rolls. Arrange them in a ring, spacing them apart and let them poof again till they kind of stick to one another. Brush some milk or water on the rolls, then dust them with dry garlic powder and salt. You can add cheese also on the rolls, But I kind of kept it out.

After they rise and look poofed up, bake them for 10-15 mins in a preheated oven at 350DegreesF.  When they are done, they will change color and the whole house will be smelling of garlic and bread. This is one of the main reason I bake this bread on Sunday, it's a kind of aromatherapy session and make the whole Monday morning seem passable. so Moms and dads what are we waiting for. Make them and let me know how it turned out for you all.