brown rice kanchipuram idli

Pillowy soft and airy, fresh idlis right out of the steamer are my biggest weakness.  When I am unmolding them, I pop one in my mouth  – just for “quality assurance” and the next thing I know is that I have gone through an entire tray of four in minutes!  It has to be magic that simply two ingredients and some salt get transformed by fermentation into delightfully spongy and soft savory steamed dumpling/cake thingys! Oh….and did I mention their color; like a just-bloomed mogra flower?

A breakfast staple in South India, I have lost count of how many of these I have had in my life. At home, in Udupi hotels, from roadside stalls, in trains and even in planes.  Although the home made ones are the best, the ones I crave and long for the most are the ones I had as a child when we went to my grandparents village during summer break.   It used to be a huge family reunion of sorts with my aunts and cousins also coming at the same time for their summer break. Many of the memories of those lazy summer days are foggy, but other sepia-toned scenes are flashing through my mind like a rewind on an old VCR:  Walking to my grandfather’s mango orchard on the outskirts of the village in the sweltering heat – the hot sand getting between our feet and slippers, going to see Telugu movies in the only theatre in the village with its wooden snapping seats which would fold up if you weren’t quick enough to plonk yourself into them, watching my grandmother cook….a coal stove on one side and a wood-fired stove on the other, bathing in an outdoor bathroom that was four brick walls with a rusty, beaten up metal door and no roof (which is pretty fashionable now thanks to trendy eco-resorts)!

But much as I loved my grandmother’s cooking, it is not her idlis that I yearn for.  What I really want are the ones that came from the local hotel and I use the term hotel rather loosely here. Because in reality, it was more of a canteen with tables and benches that served coffee and a few breakfast items and a little stall in the front selling cigarettes and supari and such stuff.  And we never went there to eat – it was always a take-out!  Double wrapped – the first layer would be a fresh banana leaf wrapped around the idlis and chutney, which would then be wrapped in a newspaper and tied with string to make a neat packet.  When you unwrapped the packet, you would find the still hot idlis nestled in the banana leaf with some of the chutney finding its way onto the idli and some sticking to the leaf.

Although considered a very healthy breakfast food, the fact that it is made with polished white rice makes me somewhat guilty.  In the interest of eating more whole grain, I decided to make them with brown rice instead of white, knowing fully well that positioning these beige colored discs as “new and improved” would have been a tough sell to the family.  So I decided to make a type of idli that is famed as the wonderful prasadam of the Varadaraja Perumal temple in Kanchipuram – the Kanchipuran Idli.  A bit coarser and not quite as spongy and white as regular idlis,  they are uniquely spicy with flecks of black pepper, cumin and ginger.  They are steamed in a giant banana leaf roll which gave the idlis a unique flavor and appearance.

I did not want to deal with the engineering of a giant banana leaf roll and a previous attempt at making them in another popular way – by steaming them in glasses had left me with something resembling a door-stop.  So I decided to make them in the traditional plates but lined with pieces of the banana leaf so that they still got infused with the flavor and scent of the banana leaves.  If you want, you can make them in small glasses or katoris that have been lightly oiled.  You can skip the banana leaves if you don’t have access to them.  And those of you who do have easy access to tender banana leaves – I am officially jealous!

These go best with some podis and chutneys….don’t bother with sambar because these will completely lose their identity if dunked in sambar.  Also, adjust the amount of black pepper based on how peppery you would like them.

Brown Rice Kanchipuram Idli

Printable Recipe

1 cup urad dal
2 cups brown rice or brown rice rava*
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1- 1 1/2 tsp black pepper seeds
1 green chili
approx. 1 tsp fresh ginger
1/4 tsp ginger powder
2 tsp ghee
a large pinch of asafoetida (hing)
6-8 curry leaves, chopped coarsely
salt to taste

Rinse and soak urad dal and brown rice/brown rice rava separately overnight for 8 hours.

The next morning, grind the urad dal to a smooth paste.  If using brown rice, grind it coarsely and mix into urad dal.  If using rava, mix it directly into the urad dal.  Add salt and ferment for 8-12 hours until the batter is well fermented and light and bubbly.  It should have a slight sour taste.

Powder the black pepper and cumin to a coarse powder and grind the green chilies and ginger to a paste.  Add to the batter.

Add the raw asafoetida powder to the batter.

Heat ghee in a small pan and add the curry leaves.  Saute for a couple of seconds and add to batter.

To prepare the banana leaves

Rinse the banana leaves and wipe dry.  Run it quickly over a flame to make them pliable.  You will see a whitish , powdery layer on them disappear to reveal a fresh, green color that looks a little oily.

Cut the leaves into small squares.

Idlis

Boil some water in a steamer or pressure cooker.

Line each cup in the idli plate with a piece of banana leaf and pour enough batter to barely reach the surface.  Repeat for all the other sections.  Cover with another piece of banana leaf and place stand in the steamer.

Steam with cover on for 12 mins. If using a pressure cooker, remember not to use the weight.

Remove stand from steamer and let cool for a few minutes before removing the idlis.

Serve hot with coconut chutney and podis.

*Brown Rice Rava

Take 2 cups of brown rice and rinse once or twice under running water.

Drain all the water and spread on a clean kitchen towel to dry overnight.

Grind to a coarse powder the next day and sieve it with a fine mesh to remove all the fine flour, leaving behind the coarse rava.