Mini Shape Idlis - Kids Lunch Box

Lunch - Mini Shape Idlis, Tomato Thokku (Pickle), Madeleine, Yogurt. Thokku recipe here. Madeleine recipe here.

Idlis can be prepared in regular idli molds. I got the idea of using silicone molds to make idlis from a friend. I took the idea a little further and made these mini idlis in small silicone chocolate molds. They are a treat to the eyes and my little one cannot get enough of it. These are the molds that I used.

Rava Idli

Have you made something and felt that even proffessional chefs can't beat this taste? This rava idli was one such moment for me. I have been meaning to make this for some time now. A long time ago I had tried making rava idli and for some reason this batter was very runny and I did not like it much.

When I made Oats Idli, it came out really good. So I decided to try rava idli by the same principles. It was just soft yet porous and grainy with the texture of rava coming thru perfectly. Treat your loved ones with this perfect breakfast and you will have to come and thank me for this recipe :-)



Ingredients

Rava 1.5 cups
Curd 1 cup
Water 1.5 cups
Eno Fruit salt 1.5 tsp
Salt 1 tsp

Mustard 1/2 tsp
Channa Dal 1 tsp
Split Urad Dal 1/2 tsp
Jeera 1/2 tsp
Hing a little
Cashews few
Carrot 1 big grated
Green Chilli 1 finely chopped
Ginger a little finely chopped
Curry leaves few finely chopped
Coriander leaves a little finely chopped

Method of Preparation

1. Heat a pan. Add the rava and roast it till a nice aroma comes. Keep aside.

2. In the same pan, add a little oil. Add mustard.

3. When it sputters, add channa dal, urad dal and cashews. Stir till it starts to brown.

4. Then add the carrots, green chilli, ginger, curry leaves, jeera and hing. Mix and cook for a couple of minutes.

5. Add the rava and mix well for a minute or 2.

6. Transfer to a vessel. Add the curd and water and mix well.

7. Add salt and coriander leaves. Mix everything together.

8. Grease an idli plate and keep ready.

9. Add eno to the batter. Mix well and pour into plates and immediately steam for about 10 minutes.

10. Let it cool a little and then take out of the plates. Serve with some chutneys or molaga podi. It actually tasted very good as it is cause it already has a lot of flavours.

Oats Idli

Oats are quite popular in our house. We eat it as a porridge and we all love it. Making savoury with oats was not a popular thing in our house. I somehow convinced my husband a few weeks ago for a Magic Mingle event and made Oats Pongal. Though it is a popular dish in the internet, it was not a hit in our family.

When I saw Radhika post the recipe for Oats Idli, I was attracted to it from the click. She described it as a family favourite. I told my husband it is a sure hit. He was not too sure. He asked me "Are you sure she said it was a hit and not that she got hit". But I trust Radhika completely. Never failed with any of her recipes. So I made it.

I am soooo glad I tried it. We all loved it sooo much. Even made some mini idlis for my little one with it. This recipe is a keeper.



Indredients (Makes about 20 idlis)

Oats 2 cups
Rava/Semolina 1 cup
Yogurt 1 cup
Water 1.5 cups
Eno Fruit Salt 1 tsp
Mustard 1/2 tsp
Urad dal 1 tsp
Channa Dal 1 tsp
Hing a little
Grated carrots 4
Oil and Salt to taste



Method of Preparation

1. Heat a pan and toast the oats for a couple of minutes. Cool and powder it.

2. In the same pan, heat a little oil. Add mustard.

3, When it sputters, add urad dal and channa dal. When it browns, add carrots and saute for a couple of minutes. You can optionally add some green chillies, curry leaves and coriander leaves. I did not today.

4. Add the rava and saute for 2 more minutes.

5. Add to a bowl. Add the oats and salt. Mix well.

6. Add yogurt and required water and mix to form a batter.

7. Grease the idli moulds. Add fruit salt to the batter. Mix and pour to the moulds.

8. Steam for about 15 minutes (after the steam starts coming from the cooker). Take out and cool for a couple of minutes.

Serve with chutney.

Sweet Idli

I have a huge love for anything sweet. That is not to say I don't love anything savoury. I do love them as well. I love food :-) Anyways, coming back to my love for sweet things - I really love the instant sweets that you can make. I always try to make something while making salt version of the tiffin items like sweet wheat dosa (with wheat dosa), kesari (with upma), sweet aval (with poha), chakkara pongal(with venn pongal). My husband broke my heart today when he told me that he does not necessarily care for the sweets made with Jaggery. He eats them fine. So how was I supposed to know he did not care for them. So I asked - do you not like it or you don't care for them? Thankfully he said - I don't care for them. That means I can make it once in a while :-). So my plans for making Ada Pradaman are shelved for a little while now.

My mom used to make this amazing thing which till a few days ago I thought was called Kinnanappam. But a discussion with a fellow blogger made me realize I was after a wild goose chase. I did not know the name of the recipe. I did not know what the flour used was. All I remember is that she used to make it with Jackfruit and it had jaggery in it. It is not the therali appam or the elayappam. I love those 2 very much. So anyways, knowing fully well that I am not making what she used to make,I pulled out a vessel and started adding all the things that I felt like adding. The result was an idli that I really enjoyed. And though my husband broke my heart saying he does not care for stuff with Jaggery, he ate more idlis than me.



Ingredients

Wheat Flour 1 cup
Jaggery 1/2 cup
Cardamom 1/2 tsp
Raisins 1/4 cup
Banana 1 big one
Coconut 3 tbsp
Ghee for greasing the idli plates

Method of preparation

1. Melt the jaggery with 1/2 cup of water and let it cool.

2. Take the wheat flour in a vessel. Mash the banana and add it the flour.

3. Add the melted jaggery to it and make a dough. Add enough water. Keep is really thick.

4. Add the raisins, coconut and cardamom powder. Mix well.

5. Grease the idli plates with some ghee and pour the batter into it. Steam for 8-10 minutes. Enjoy this yummy and healthy sweet. It is not a very soft idli. It will be a little hard, tasty nevertheless.

Idli Upma

Idli Upma is a good way to use up some left over idli. It also helps to get some vegetables into the food.

OK now comes the confession. I do not like the simple plain idli. Ok I know. Most of you are thinking - what is wrong with her. But its the truth. One form I like eating it is when it is smeared with Molaga podi, packed for a picnic. After marriage, I have learned to tolerate it :-)

So for me, Idli upma is not an idea to make something with leftover idli. I made some idli the previous night and kept so that I can make this upma in the morning. You cannot make this with fresh soft idlis and you will not be able to crumble them.

Ingredients

Idli 10 numbers

Onion 1 big finely chopped

Mixed vegetables 3 cups. I heat my frozen vegetables in the microwave for 15 min.

Idli Molaga podi 3 tbsp

Coriander leaves for Garnish

Oil

Salt

For Tempering

Mustard 1tsp

Jeera 1 tsp

Turmeric 1 tsp

Hing - little

finely chopped green chillies, ginger and curry leaves

cashews 10

channa dal 1 tsp

Method of Preparation

1. Heat oil in a Pan and add the mustard. When it sputters, add channa dal and cashews.

2. When it is slightly browned, add the Jeera, green chillies, ginger, curry leaves, Turmeric Powder and Hing.

3. Saute for a few seconds and add the onions.

4. Once the onions are slightly browned, add the mixed vegetables, Idli Molaga podi, and salt and cook for a few minutes.

5. Crumble the idlis and add to the pan. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Carrot Idli

This is the first time I am trying stuffing in my idli. I had prepared some batter and used it for making dosa. So I did not have enough batter left for making idli for the 3 of us.

I have seen many recipes for vegetable idli. I decided to try it with just carrots. This way, I will need a little less batter. And also, my vegetable loving husband and son will not crib that there is no vegetable in the meal.

Ingredients

Idli maavu (batter) 16 laddles

Onion 1 small cut into small pieces

Carrots 3 small grated

Mustard 1tsp

Jeera 1 tsp

Channa dal 1 tsp

Curry leaves few

Dosa/Idli Podi 3tbsp (you can use a tsp of chilli powder or pepper powder instead)

Oil and Salt to taste

Method of Preparation

1. Heat oil in a Pan and add the mustard. When it sputters, add Channa dal.

2. When it starts to brown, add the jeera and curry leaf. sauté for a few seconds.

3. Add onions and saute till it is slightly browned

4. Add the grated carrots and saute for a couple of minutes.

5. Add dosa podi and salt. The stuffing is ready!

6. Grease the idli plate and add some of the stuffing to the plate. (I tried by adding batter first, then stuffing and the fill with batter. But that was 3 steps and it was difficult to limit batter to 2 steps).

7. Then I filled with batter. This way it was a 2 step process :-)

8. Steam for 10 min and serve

Semolina Vermicelli Idli

Making Idli was always a scary thing for me. When we got married, we brought a grinder from India (the US version with 110v). I was all eager to make idli. When I tried it, it came out very hard. Could not believe I failed to make good idli even with a grinder. Packed the grinder and put it in storage.

Tried using the mixie to make idli. That was a bigger disaster. Dosa used to be good when I tried with the mixie batter, but never idli. Checked with my mother-in-law who told me a different ratio of urad and rice if making in mixie. Still did not help.

When she came to visit, we unpacked the grinder again. She tried with it. To my relief, it was not my fault. There was something wrong with the grinder. She could not make idli like the way she makes in her grinder. But it still was heavenly for us. You have to remember that we used to live in the Boston area which has a big shortage of good south indian restaurants. So eating out and satisfying the craving was not an option.

When we moved to UK, things were easier. We could just buy the regular grinder. My mother-in-law and I planned to get one. Hubby dear was against it. I am sure he was thinking about the one we had in storage for 4 years. But this time it worked!!!! I can now make soft idli. I made sure I watched her make it and made notes :-)

Anyways, the point of the above story is - Rava Semiya idli was my option when I could not make the real one. We still enjoy it!

Ingredients

Rava (Semolina) 1 cups (I use the thicker wheat rava. not a fan of sooji)

Semiya (Vermicelli) 2 cups

Mustard 1tsp

Jeera 1 tsp

green chillies 3, curry leaves, ginger 1 inch piece all finely chopped

Channa dal 2 tsp

Cashew 10

Hing - little

Oil and Salt to taste

Method of Preparation

1. Dry roast the Semolina and transfer to a vessel

2. Add a little oil and roast the Vermicelli and add to the same vessel

3. Add enough water to this and leave it for 30 min. Remember that the mix will be watery initially. But will get thicker when the water gets absorbed.

4. In a separate kadai, heat a little oil and add mustard seeds. When it sputters, add cashew and channa dal. When it slightly browns, add the jeera, green chilli, ginger, curry leaf and hing.

5. Add the tempering and salt to the batter and mix well.

6. Grease Idli plates and Pour batter into it.

7. Steam for 10 min and serve with chutney of choice. I made Tomato Onion Chutney today.