Idlis

After pissing around forever, the CC has finally managed to make the idlis of his dreams.

Fluffy, fluffy, fluffy, fluffy, fluffy deliciousness.

Here are the practical problems in a nutshell:

The CC lives in a colder climate. The CC lives in a climate where there is serious temperature variation between day and night. The CC lives in a drier climate.

All of these are real problems that need to be solved. Many of these do not apply to the Californicators or those in God's Waiting Room, the Floridians. Congratulations on your luck!

Ingredients

1 tbsp fenugreek seeds (soaked)
urad (soaked)
idli rava (read below)

patience (and lots of it!)

Recipe

Soak the fenugreek seeds and the urad for 6-8 hours.

Grind the crap out of the stuff to produce an extremely smooth paste with as little of the soaked water as possible.

Now, add 2.5 portions of the idli rava by volume. Add some water to make a thickish paste.

Now, comes the patience part. You need to let the stuff ferment in a warm-ish place at a relatively stable temperature. What only takes overnight in India can easily take four days out in the US. An oven with a pilot light works wonders.

Some auxiliary observations:

Do not add salt up front. This prevents the sourdough from forming.

Do not use chlorinated water.

If the batter seems dried out, add water and stir periodically.

The thing will ferment eventually, and you will get fluffy soft idlis.

Patience, young Jedis!