Weekend breakfast–Rawa Idli

Rawa Idli is that dish which, in spite of being a hotelier’s daughter, I have not gotten over. In Mom’s house, I would just have to utter the word Rawa Idli, and Dad would send the piping hot idlis home, but after I moved away and got married, I had to look for sustainable options  to eat this delicacy. One of the was cooking it myself, more because of the husband’s love for all south Indian khana(That man’s ability to eat South Indian food day after day after day without complaining and in fact relishing it is something I am yet to understand!)

One of those weekend mornings early into our marriage and my kitchen days, the husband suggested that I make Rawa Idli for him. Like a dutiful wife, I went to the supermarket, bought the MTR rawa idli mixes and made him the idlis. As usual, he loved them and thats how we started stacking up packets and packets of the mixes.

Life would’ve gone this way happily had I not joined the anti-readymade-food-campaign(God alone knows where I caught it from. My guess is wisdom :) ) and gave away all these packets to the maids. This meant longer hours in the kitchen, more raking of the brains for recipes and varieties of home-cooked meals, and with the small incentive of healthier and tastier food. We, of course, chose the road less taken, and moved to the bright side of food-eating.

Giving away the packets meant, I no longer get to eat the awesome MTR rasam or sambar rice and oh the horror, Rawa Idli also! Well, those were the dire times which pushed me to start making my own rawa idlis. :)

Some reading up and some talking to the women in the family yielded me this recipe, and ever since I started making this, I’ve never got the urge to stock up on the ready-made stuff! Honest!

The recipe is simple. In two steps, Make dry upma and mix it with sour curd. Yes, that simple! :)

Here is a more detailed recipe, though !

Ingredients:

1 cup Bombay Rawa
1 tsp each of mustard seeds, chana dal, urad dal, jeera
A pinch of hing (Asafoetida)
4-5 crumpled kadi patta
1 green chilli, finely chopped
1 tbsp ginger, finely chopped
2 tbsps refined oil

2 cups sour curd(I leave the curd out of the fridge overnight for breakfast the next day)
A pinch of salt

Procedure:

Heat the oil in the pan on a medium flame, and add the mustard seeds to it. Once the seeds start spluttering, add the chana dala, urad dal and jeera to this. Once all these attain a golden color, add the hing and kadi patta. Now add the chilli and ginger pieces to the oil. Wait till they are a roasted.

Pour the rawa in the pan, and mix with the roasted ingredients. Keep roasting the rawa till you notice the change in smell of the rawa. Its is a nice roasted fragrance which is hard to miss. Take care to not burn the rawa and that its roasted evenly. Let this mixture cool.

At this point, you have two choices. Either mix 2 cups of hot water to this and let it evaporate and eat it like Upma. Or mix this with sour curd and make Rawa idli.

Once you mix this curd, do not let it sit for more than 2-3 mins. This mixture hardens, and you will need to add some water to soften it again, and get it to the batter consistency.

Depending on your method of making idlis, ie either pressure cooker or microwave, grease the idli pans, and pour one spoon each of this mixture into each mould.

I make these in a microwave, and heat the idli mixture for 6 mins at full power.

Serve with coconut chutney.