Tips on Teaching and Cooking South Indian Food (Idli/Dosa/Chutney)

Next month, I will be teaching a series of classes on Indian cuisine in Rochester, NY. You can see the list of classes here. In the meantime, if you're interested, you can see this video I made from a class I gave earlier this year on South Indian Cooking. In this video I show how I prepared for the class- all the cooking gadgets, utensils, pots and pans I required to manage the class along with the food items and tips and tricks for giving Indian cooking classes and cooking Indian food. Enjoy!

Tips on Teaching and Cooking South Indian Food (Idli/Dosa/Chutney) from Authentic Journeys on Vimeo.

Video Transcripts
I recently gave a series of cooking classes- the first in my life! ;-) In this video, which I shot before the class, I share how I prepared to teach this class, all the utensils and food items I had to bring and some tips on how to cook some Indian dishes with American gadgets (in case you can't find the Indian gadgets in your town!). I hope this video is helpful to those who want to teach class or simply learn a little about setting up an India-inspired kitchen and wanting to learn how cook Indian food.

Following is the written transcripts of what I say in the video!

Welcome to Authentic Journeys with Jennifer Kumar
Indian Cooking Class April 2010: Preparing to teach South Indian Cooking Class
(Dosa/Idli/Coconut Chutney)
Brighton (Rochester), NY

HI everyone, I'm Jennifer Kumar from Authentic Journeys and Alaivani.com. Hope you're having a great day.

It's actually Vishu. Happy Vishu to everyone who knows what that is. It's actually the new year celebration for Keralites in southwestern India. It's kinda fitting that it's Vishu and I'm gonna be teaching a South Indian cooking class today - dosa/idli and coconut chutney. I'm gonna show you a little bit about what I did today and how I prepared. I think the video is gonna be a little bit long, but hang in there. Let me know what you think at the end.

This week's class doesn't have as much stuff because I prepared the dosa batter at home during the week. Of course, I need my utensils; all these different things. And oil. I'm gonna introduce the students to sesame oil (1). That's what this is. This was pretty popular to use in Chennai; among many of my friends. Some people say it's mostly amongst Brahmins. I like to eat it with my dosa podi(2), which is a powder mixed with oil that you dip your dosa or idli in. Some people call it 'gun powder,' because it's so hot.

I like to use this silicone brush to actually dip in the oil and put on the pan. It actually ends up using less oil. One of my Indian friends taught me this. I have a few different pans here because students might try their hand at making the dosa. The two in the back that are square are non-stick pans. This front one is a cast iron skillet, which I acquired recently. I prefer the cast iron, it uses a lot less oil. And, as you can see, the other two pans – especially this one, it kinda doesn't lie flat anymore. It doesn't heat evenly for that reason, too. Non-stick even though they claim it uses less oil, I use a lot less oil on the cast iron. It's glistening oils because it's... seasoned. I think that's what they call it. You're not supposed to wash the cast iron with water and soap.

These are some of the other ingredients I have for today. This is grated coconut (3). You can buy it in the frozen section. There’s many different brands, but somehow I like this brand the best: Daily Delight. It’s my favorite. I’m not getting paid by the company to say that, I just really like this brand… when I try other brands… well, maybe I like the packaging…

This is a traditional tempering pan that’s used in South India. Maybe it’s used in other parts of India. It’s kind of a little bit shallow, but not that deep, and a little small. It’s used to temper or pop mustard seeds and other kinds of spices: curry leaves, green chilies, dhal, lentil pieces… You can see my reflection in there…It’s pretty funny.. HI! ;) So, yeah, I got this from India. It’s one of my favorite things. I use it a lot. Salt, of course. This is mustard seeds. This is salt. That’s chenna dhal. This is gonna be used for the coconut chutney. All these ingredients are for coconut chutney. This is curry leaves inside the packet. The Indian store I went to around here in Rochester gets all of their vegetables on Thursday, and today is Thursday. If you’re ever gonna give an ethnic cooking class think about ahead of time when do the stores around you get their ethnic vegetables because they ran outta green chilies. I couldn’t get any today, so the coconut chutney isn’t really gonna taste 100% ethnic, unfortunately, but I have to go ahead with the plan. I bought ready-made coconut chutney. I personally haven’t tried this one, this is Lakshmi brand. I picked this one over another brand because they actually use green chilies. I read the ingredient list. Another brand in the Indian store of coconut chutney used jalapenos, which I suppose you can use but it would give a slightly different taste. These are urad dhal pieces, the white ones, and dried red chilies. That’s for the coconut chutney.

Now, these are the dosa batters that I’ve ground this week. It’s kind of hard to open with one hand. It’s kind of puffed up and then de-poofed. I hope it doesn’t loose it’s taste. I’d been grinding idli batter all week. Actually, these two plus another one for home. The nice thing about the plastic containers is you can actually see where it rose. It rose then it de-poofed, so.. hmm… I hope it doesn’t affect the taste.

These three little containers here are for the students to look at the idli rice closer, the urad dhal, and the methi or fenugreek seeds. These are the three ingredients used to make the dosa batter.(4) They can open it up and touch and feel all the ingredients and they can see what it looks like, because we’re not gonna be grinding them here. Of course, my trusty Magic Bullet…that’s gonna be [used to] grind the coconut chutney.

And, over to this side, this is the idli… all the stuff to make idli (5). Now if you made idli, and you see this, this is the traditional thing to make idli on, the idli stand [and put it] in a pressure cooker like that. There are idli pans that you can buy in India that are slightly different than this, but this is the way that I do it here in America. I have this idli pan. But, you know this kind of this is hard for many Americans to acquire, so I found some other ways to show how to make idli. One is in this egg poacher pan, which is pretty handy. These things actually come out and you can oil it. You don’t actually have to put that much oil on it as those [the traditional idli pan]. These are a non-stick surface, and in this case, non-stick does actually require less oil than, say, the non-stick pan as compared to the cast iron pan. As you can see this is a deeper idli, and a smaller, rounder idli, where this is not as deep, but the circle is bigger. So, for these I actually leave it in the pan for a little bit longer. So, if I leave this in for 15 minutes, I leave that one in for twenty minutes. And, this is the third way. This is a silicone strainer, or steamer that goes into the bottom of the pan to steam vegetables, and these are egg poachers; silicone egg poachers. I have two different sizes. A bigger size and these kind of smaller sizes. These are actually used as dipping bowls. With these I leave them in about 20 minutes, and they turn out pretty good. I have to do these (the bigger ones) separately from these (the smaller ones), but I can put this in a regular sauce pan, American sauce pan, but I have to make sure the lid is a glass lid with a hole that allows the steam to escape. I forgot to bring that. But, a lid that’s similar to this – with a hole on top, so the steam can escape, like in that set altogether.

Now, these are gonna be introduced to the students. These are different kinds of dosa podis: a general one on the left and a sesame one on the right. We can get these in our local restaurant called Mysore Woodlands, but you have to ask for it. They don’t automatically give it to you with the dosa, so some people may not know about it. So, I’ll show ‘em how to use it; eat it. And, these are some snacks. Kerala Mixture with peanuts and chick pea flour fried snacks mixed in there. This is murrukku. This is a deep fried snack made from rice and lentil flours with red chili and cumin and some other spices. They can try that. This is actually a sweet from North India called Soan Papdi. Somebody had asked about this last week. This came out of a box that I already had at home, so they might like to try that.

One thing is that I’ve always looked to other bloggers and been like, ‘Wow they do stuff on the internet, then they get to do it in real life!" Well, the recipes that I’m using for both of these classes, the previous class was palak paneer, and today’s the dosa, I put on my blog already like sometime last year sometime. So, I guess I been preparing for this class without knowing about it. So, I get to translate the stuff the stuff that I’m doing online to my offline life. It’s pretty exciting, and I’m pretty excited. I’m really happy to have this opportunity. I thank the students for it, I thank the Brighton Continuing Education Department for hiring me to do this job, and… you … for watching this video, of course! Leave your comments, questions, feedback; anything you’d like. I’d like to be in touch with you. Thanks for watching. Have a great day.


(In this video, I will answer a few questions-
Can idli be made without a pressure cooker?
Can dosa be made on a cast iron pan?)

Related Posts: See the recipes I used to give this class-

Coconut Chutney - Dosa- Idli Photologue

Coconut Chutney - Dosa- Idli Photologue

article by Jennifer Kumar
photos: Krishna Kumar

A nice, sour fermenting smell pervaded the entire home as I lifted the cover from the idli-dosa batter! What a nice pre-Christmas gift. This time, I deviated from the regular 3 cups idli rice/1 cup urad dhal with 2 cups long grain rice from the Mexican store and 1 cup idli rice to 1 cup urad dhal, nicely ground with a few fenugreek (methi) seeds and a dash of salt. Though it's freezing out, and the floors and tabletops are colder than in the summertime, I wrapped the batter bowl in a towel and set it on the floor by the furnace heater vent. In about 36 hours, I welcomed this wonderful present! I knew my happiness would bound more once hubby would get to eat some crispy dosa on his first holiday from work for Christmas break.

The process of making dosa and idli batter has been a difficult one for me. It's taken me more than four years, and three blenders to get the right methods. What was once cumbersome in planning, blending and fermenting- let alone getting the right pressure while ladling and forming dosas on the hot pan, is now almost effortless. For me, it's really a big accomplishment. My main motivation and inspiration to make dosas, and masala dosas come from Maya's Kitchen. Once, when we dropped by, she left a long lasting impression on me. The way she formed each dosa on the pan, spread the dosa podi on the crisp dosa while rolling in the potato curry- as a one woman assembly line feeding over 10 people left me in awe. I thought, "Would I, could I ever be so efficient at making dosa?" This experience came to me at a time where dosa batter once ladled onto the pan would just end up in a sloppy, gooey, mountain mess on the pan- so I stuck to making idlis instead while hubby effortlessly made and attempted to show and teach me the right way to spread dosa batter on the pan. So much to learn- especially in the grace required to press with just such a delicate force to assure the batter is spread in almost a spiral pattern, but that the batter remains on the pan, and we are left with a nice, crispy, almost paper-thin dosa. I started with idli, moved to utthapam (a thicker dosa topped with chopped veggies, pictured, right), and recently as of this year started making the paper-thin variety. I still have a way to go to perfect my talent, but I know I am on the right track!

But, idli and dosa can not be eaten alone. They are always accompanied by something- dosa podi with oil, a variety of chutneys, sambar, [Indian] pickles, and many other sides I have yet to discover. On hot days, somehow I like to eat idli with yogurt as a plain dish- no spices, which is good on the stomach. I prefer to eat other's homemade prepared dosa podi (powders made with roasted spices and lentils), which I mix with sesame oil, and hubby mixes with olive or vegetable oil. For chutneys, I make tomato (photo, right), onion or coconut chutney. If we have left over idlis, later I will take, cut them and make an idli upma (dry fry of idli pieces mixed with tempered curry leaves, mustard seeds, urad dhal, and few other spices, similiar to Quinoa Upma, with idli pieces instead of Quinoa).

For those new to this cuisine, idli are steamed cakes made from the batter that dosa is made from. Some purists may actually make two batters- the idli batter and dosa batter- with a slightly different proportion of rice to urad dhal. I don't do that- too much work right now! These cakes are steamed in an idli pan set into a big pressure cooker. I usually steam it for about 20 mintues. However, last night I tried something new- I steamed them in a egg poacher. This cooking gadget is a more western contraption and is more easily available in America than idli pans, and pressure cookers (though pressure cookers are available in American stores, most Americans do not use pressure cookers). I steamed four idlis in the egg poacher last night. The final product, after 20 minutes of steaming is a cake a bit thicker and not as wide as the ones made in an idli pan, so they are actually a bit more filling per idli. However, we realized, it needs to steam a bit longer. Maybe next time I will leave it in there about 25 minutes- the middle section was still a bit uncooked, but edible.

Recipes:

Idli/Dosa Batter
3 cups rice
1 cup urad dhal
1 tsp methi (fenugreek seeds)

Method:
1. Soak rice and dhal in separate bowls for about 6 hours. Soak the fenugreek seeds in with the rice.
**If you are curious what rice to use, I usually use 'idli rice' available at the Indian store. If I don't have that on hand, I use 'ponni rice' also available at the Indian store. However, if you have no Indian store nearby, you can use long grain rice, that works well too.
2. Puree the rice separately and dhal separately, with little water. The consistency should be like pudding/thick pancake batter.
Blending the dhal is usually easier than the rice. Dhal will easily and quickly blend and puree. Check with your finger in between, before taking out of the blender. Take a bit of the batter between your thumb and forfinger, rub your fingers together, you should not feel any lumps or grains. It will feel 'like satin', smooth and velvety.
For the rice, it is a bit more tricky. The best batter is made by pureeing the rice separately from the dhal, because to get this velvety feeling from the rice, it takes a bit longer to blend. While urad takes about 3-5 minutes to get velvety smooth, rice may take 5-10 minutes depending on your blender's power. When you check the rice in between for smoothness, the graininess will decrease. Also, as one blends the rice, the batter thickens as the mixture becomes more velvety. Hope that makes sense! (Fenugreek seeds will be pureed along with the rice.)
3. When both urad and rice have been pureed sufficiently, mix these two purees together in a big bowl. Make sure there is room in the bowl above the line of the batter, to give room for batter to rise. Blending will take anywhere between 15-30 minutes.
4. After mixing the two batters, set this bowl aside for one day to two days depending on the climate. Some people suggest having the batter in a metal or glass bowl and keeping in the oven with the light on (no heat) for fermenting. I have not done this. I usually put the mixture in a plastic bowl, twice the size of the batter, assure the lid is on tightly, wrap it in a towel. If it is summer, I put it on the counter top for 1-2 days. In winter, I wrap the bowl in a towel and place it on the floor on a blanket in front of the heater vent for 1-2 days. I check the batter at intervals of about 12 hrs, 20 hrs, 30 hrs, etc or whenever I remember. Batter is ready when the lid is removed and a sour aroma hits you in the face and when the lid is fully taken off, the batter has mushroomed up- it is fermented and risen. Timing for this is between 15-48 hours depending on climate conditions.
5. Batter should be a pouring consistency to make dosa or idli. The consistency should be like a milkshake- thin, consistently smooth and pourable. Sometimes when the batter ferments and rises, it also thickens. It is important to add water little by little to get the batter to the right consistency. Some will take water in a bowl, dip fingers into it, and spray water with fingers little by little into the batter, mixing it with a spatula or fork until the right consistency is attained.

Wondering how many servings this batter makes? I am really not sure! It lasts us about 2-3 days of idli dosa making. I eat between 3-5 idlis, and he eats about 3-5 dosas. Roughly one ladle is one serving (1 ladle batter=1 idli= 1 dosa). If I make an educated guess, I'd say between 12-17 servings of idli/dosa from this batter.


How to fry/make dosa
If making dosa, the pan must be very hot. So hot that steam will be seen rising off the pan, even when frying, as to the right. (Click on all photos for bigger sizes.) Some take the pan off for a few seconds before pouring batter on it. A ladle of batter is put on the pan and in concentric, even circles the batter is made into a thin pancake. Dripping a little oil around the sides of the dosa is important to make it crispy. Keep the heat on high, and watch the dosa. When it is first put on the pan, good batter will bubble and bubbles will burst as it fries. Usually we do not flip for about 5-6 minutes. To know when to flip, it would be possible to see the browness of the bottom coming through to the top, but not blackening or burning. When it is time to flip, taking the spatula around the 'edges' it would come off easily when the bottom has browned slightly. Flip and fry a bit on the other side. Do drip oil around it and move the pan around to get the oil to go under the dosa. This is not deep frying- a lot of oil is not needed- about 2-3 teaspoons per dosa is used. Some people may use more to get it a bit more crispy and brown. It is imperative to use oil to get a true taste out. The few times I tried to make a 'diet dosa' I realized it just wasn't worth it!

From Vegetarian Cuisine

How to make/steam idlis
If you have the Indian utensils, oil the idli pan and put about an inch of water in the bottom of the pressure cooker and heat the pan. Place batter in each oiled idli mold about 1/2-3/4 full. Place the idli stand inside the pot. Put the top on, do not put the weight on the pressure cooker. Once steam comes from the top, time it for about 20 minutes. Take out and enjoy!

How to steam idlis in an egg poacher pan
This method is similar to the above. Take each egg poacher insert, oil it, and fill it about 1/2-3/4 full with the batter. Steam on high heat about 25 minutes.

Close up of Idli fluffing up in poacher pan.

Pan view.

Making Coconut Chutney Side Dish:
This two step coconut chutney recipe is so easy. It was taught to me by my father-in-law.

Step 1:
1/2 cup grated coconut
2 tbpsn chenna dhal (uncooked)
2 green chilies
dash salt
1/4 cup water

Place all these items in a blender and puree it. It may become thick, add 1/8 cup more water. Some people like the chutney thick, others more watery. The dhal would take some more time to puree. If you want to make it a bit easier to blend, soak the dhal separately in water for about 30 minutes before blending.

Place the pureed coconut mix into a serving bowl.


Step 2
Oil
pinch black mustard seeds
10 curry leaves
2 green chilies cut lengthwise
2 dried red chilies broken in half
1 tsp urad dhal

Take a small frying pan. Heat it. Put in the oil (about 2 tablespoons). Heat the oil. Put in the mustard seeds. Take care, when they heat they will burst out of the pan. This is important to get the right smell and taste.
When the seeds have burst, slightly move the pan up off the flame/stove and add in the other spices, temper them a few minutes until the urad dhal seems brown, not black. When it's ready (only takes about 2-3 minutes) put this mix on the top of the coconut mixture already in the bowl. Though it looks nice sitting on top of the coconut, as in the photo, do mix the spices into the coconut puree and sit aside for 10-20 minutes to let the flavors mix. It's so tasty!!

**I like to take the green chilies, urad and red chilies and put them in a small bowl so when oil and mustard seeds are ready, I can just drop the whole thing right into the pan!




Related Posts/Sites:
Maya's Kitchen- My local friend's vegetarian and non-vegetarian delicacies
Pongal Holiday Potluck Menu and Recipes
Quinoa Upma
Raw Onion Chutney
Stovetop, electric and microwave egg poachers.
Tomato Chutney by Nithya

Indian Steel Tumbler

Photo by Krishna Kumar.

Idli Cooking Gadget Photo

Photo by Krishna Kumar.

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.