Kanchipuram Idli

Ingredients:

1 cup Idli Rice
1 cup Urad Dhal
10 methi (Fenugreek) seeds.
2-3 tsp salt
10 peppercorns
1 tsp Cumin seeds
10 pieces of cubed ginger (1/4 inch)
Pinch of Asafetida
15 Cashewnuts- chopped or crushed
2 tspns Ghee
1/2 cup Sesame Oil


Method:
1. Soak both rice and urad dhal with a pinch of
methi seeds for 3 hours.
2. Grind rice with sparse water into a silky paste.
3. Add required salt and let it fermentation about
8-10 hours. (If you live in hot climate, you can set
it in the sun. If you live in cold climate, you have
two choices.
First choice: Heat oven, turn off and cool. Keep the
oven light on and keep batter in 6-8 hours to ferment.
Second choice: Place the batter near or close as
possible to a heating vent overnight.
Fermenting will allow batter to rise and also smell
slightly sour.)
4. After fermenting, add sesame oil, peppercorns,
ginger pieces, and ing (Asafetida) into the batter
and stir well.
5. Heat 1 tsp ghee.  Add cashewnuts and cumin
seeds until the cashewnuts lightly brown.  Add to
mixture, mix well.
6. Take a pressure cooker, without the weight.
There are two choices on how to pressure
in tumbers.
First choice: Place a metal cooking rack on the
bottom of the cooker and take 3-4 Indian steel
tumblers.  Tumblers can sit on the rack.
Second choice: If you have a dhokla rack, keep only
the bottom most rack in the gadget, place the
tumblers on this.
8. Coat tumblers with sesame oil, fill tumber 3/4
full with idli batter. Set tumblers on your rack.
Close pressure cooker without using weight.
9. Once the steam starts coming from the cooker,
time steaming for 20 minutes.
10. When done, you can take the idlis out easier by
pouring cold water on the bottom of the tumblers.
A blunt object may help get them out as well.
11. Keep repeating steps 6, 7, and 8 until batter is over
or required amount is made. 
12. Serve with chutney, sambar or dhal powders.

Notes:
1. After making the first batch note how heavy the idlis
appear. If they seem heavy or thick, add some water to
the batter and test another few tumblers. Idlis should be
somewhat light and airy when steamed.
2. Leftover batter can be kept for several days after it is
made.

**This is Kanchipuram style due to being steamed in. You
can also steam in regular idli pans too. 

I will post photos of these gadges in separate posts. (I
tried in this post and it did not work properly.)
Photo: Indian Steel Tumbler
Photo: Idli Cooking Gadget Photo
This recipe is adapted from the recipe posted on Bawarchi.com.