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This is a grinding stone traditionally used in India to wet grind while cooking. With the invention of electric wet grinders, this stone is used less and less nowadays. But I can assure you, that ‘chutneys’ made by grinding with this stone tastes way better than if -ground in an electric grinder. I guess this is because, the food is press ground in this, unlike being cut by blades in an electric grinder.

Few decades ago, electric grinders were still unheard of. People used stone grinders where manual work was involved to prepare the batter. A sample pic is shown below. Click on the image to enlarge.

Image Courtesy: songbirdgardens.co.nz

But times have now changed. People realized that simple mixer grinders were not powerful enough to handle rice, dal combination. Companies saw an opportunity here and the modern wet grinder was born. Every year new innovations and patents are happening in this field. The product that is being reviewed here is “Ultra Grinder” from ELGI industries. The picture is shown below. Please click on it to enlarge.

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1. Rice - 4 cups
2. Urad Dhal - 1 cup
3. Fenugreek seeds - 1/2 tsp
4. Salt to taste
5. Water to grind the batter

Preparation:

• Soak the Rice covering fully with water for 4 hours.
• Soak the Urad dhal with fenugreek seeds and leave in the refrigerator for about 4 hours.
• Grind the Urad dhal first in the Blender /Mixie or an Indian wet grinder until fluffy, then remove it into a bowl.
• Grind the Rice and add enough salt.
• Now mix both the batter together in a big bowl using spatula.
• Let it ferment overnight which makes the batter to get double up its quantity.
• Grease the Idli plates with little oil.
• Pour one laddle of batter into the Idli plates or any flat bottom stainless steel bowl.
• Place the Idli plates into a Idli cooker or a Sauce pan with little water in the bottom and cover with the lid.
• Steam it for about 15 min.
• Your Idlies are ready now.

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Method:

1. Take a mixing bowl.
2. Add the Garlic and Ginger paste ,Jeera powder, cut Green Chillies, chilli powder, lime juice.
3. Put it in the wet grinder and make a fine paste.
4. Add the salt to taste.
5. Add some drops of the orange colour ( this is optional).
6. Take the Paneer pieces and smear this paste on all sides.
7. Leave this paneer for about an hour so that the mixture can dry up a bit.
8. Put this paneer in a greased dish and grill for about 10 minutes till it is dry and crisp.
9. Now take a fry pan and heat 2 tablespoons of oil in it.
10. Put some onion and capsicum pieces and fry them.
11. Put some paste you prepared in step 3 in this mixture of onions and capsicum.
12. take a plate and put all the cooked paneer pieces and add the cooked capsicum and onions on top.
13. Sprinkle some chat masala and lime juice on top.

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To Make Idlis:

Grease the idli plates with ghee. fill the idli plates with batter and steam cook covered for few Minutes. I use non-stick idli plates. When the Idlis are done, Take the Plates out and keep it aside for sometime. Let all the steam go away. Then scoop the Idlis. To make the idlis look more interesting, put a spoon full of grated carrots in the plate before pouring the batter.

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Colorful idly with carrots and chana dal aka masala idly is one of her recipes. Finely grated carrots and chana dal along with green chillies and cumin etc. are added to the leftover idly batter for a next day morning breakfast. Imagine the taste of upma, and these idlies almost taste like that. Steam cooked in round shape, they are a pleasure when served hot with chutney and sambar. Though they are a breakfast item back home, here I often make them on a weekend for brunch, lunch or for supper.

Recipe:
This is same as idly preparation except that we add bunch of other ingredients and change the lilly white, cloud like plain idlies into colorful, somewhat dense masala idlies.

(for 16 idlies)
3 cups of Idly batter
(urad dal and rice ravva(cream of rice) in 1:2 ratio, soaked, grind into smooth batter and kept overnight for fermentation)
Ingredients to add to idly batter
1 cup of grated carrot (1 big carrot)
¼ cup of chana dal (soaked in water for atleast an hour)
¼ cup of coarsely crushed, roasted peanuts or cashews
¼ cup of finely chopped cilantro
2 to 4 finely chopped or minced green chillies
1 teaspoon of cumin and few curry leaves
¼ teaspoon of salt or to taste

Mix the ingredients with idly batter thoroughly. Fill the round impressions of idly plates with this batter. Place the idly stand in an idly cooker and steam cook them for about 20 minutes or until the batter sets completely. Remove the idly stand from the cooker, run a spoon under each impression and separate the cooked idlies from the impressions. Serve them hot with peanut or coconut chutney and sambhar.

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I am big on breakfasts, and strongly believe in equal opportunity for breakfast foods- so you will often catch me serving them for lunch, tea and dinner as well. This month (or what’s left of it), I decided to give some thought to including more whole grains into breakfast. I do love my so-not-whole-grain poha, sabudana, rava dosa and baguettes, but let me add some whole grains to my repertoire too.

Today’s whole-grain tweak: Brown rice in idlis and dosas. The idli-dosa family of breakfast foods has got to be one of the most strongest contenders in the “nutritious meets delicious” department. There is something about the whole ritual of soaking rice and lentils, grinding them, fermenting the batter and churning out fluffy idlis and crispy dosas that is just very fulfilling. Makes me feel like a real proper cook

Until a month or two ago, the biggest challenge for me was the grinding of the batter; I had to manage with my KitchenAid food processor. Just for the record, the food processor was able to gring soaked rice and urad dal (separately) quite well, but was an utter failure when it came to grinding soaked parboiled rice. I would bite my lip nervously every time I made batter wondering if today was the day when my delicate machine would decide that it was not built for such arduous tasks and die on me. The best way to grind these batters at home is to buy one of those heavy-duty wet grinders (developed and manufactured in India) that are uniquely designed for this purpose. But you know what- they are quite expensive and I was quite sure that one was never going to fit into my budget at this time. Then I got one of these wet grinders as a gift! V’s cousin bought a newer, smaller version and generously let me have her wet grinder. This is one impressive machine. A huge metal drum with a stone floor holds two huge grinding stones (scroll down in that link to take a look at them). Start the heavy-duty motor, and even the most unyielding dal and rice is churned into a buttery paste.

One of the first recipes I tried in the wet grinder was Jugalbandi’s Whole-Grain Idlis. Yes, I finally have some gorgeous rosematta rice in my pantry.

Some time ago, I whined in a post about not being able to find rosematta rice around here. Two kind souls responded: my friend Madhu came over with rosematta rice for me to try and the one and only Linda mailed me a beautiful glass jar of rosematta from far, far away! Now this is when you soberly realize what a lucky girl you are- when even your petulant whining leads kind friends to help you.

I followed Bee and Jai’s recipe except that I skipped the 2 T of cooked rice/poha/soaked bread. I like this recipe because (a) it combines brown rice and parboiled rice (the latter, although not technically a whole grain, does retain a great many of its nutrients, if I understand correctly), (b) makes a small batch of 12-15 idlis which is nice because most idli recipes are designed to make enough idlis to feed a small village, (c) includes a tip for soaking the rice and lentils in filtered water and not chlorinated tap water (I never thought of that!).

The batter fermented beautifully without the need for any interventions such as the surreptitious addition of fruit salt :D. I am lucky in that respect; fermentation has never been a problem in my present kitchen. Still, whenever I ferment something overnight, I do tend to worry about it and obsess over it. The first thought as I cross the hazy land of half-sleep is, did the batter ferment? It is enough to jerk me wide awake and get me to stumble in the darkness to the kitchen and check on the bowl of batter. A whiff of the sweet-sour aroma of fermented batter and a look at the bubbling mass in the half-light, and I am able to heave a sigh of relief.

Here are the idlis, served with huli (now updated with a link to Latha’s secret family recipe for vibrant huli powder). See all those holes that the yeasty beasties so obligingly made?

And if steamed whole-grain idlis feel a little too healthy, you can always find creative ways to convert them into a guilty pleasure. Exhibit A: fried idli. Idlis cut into 4-5 slices, then fried in a T or so of oil until crispy.

Now that I have the wet grinder, I am like a kid with her new toy- can’t stop playing with it. Here’s another recipe I tried: Ashwini’s Mushti Polo. Her engaging write-up tells us the origin of the name of this dosa. Adding poha (flattened rice flakes) to dosa is something new to me. I did follow the recipe exactly, except to use 1 C brown rice and 1 C white rice in place of 2 C white rice. I figured, with the white poha being refined, I would add some brown rice and split the difference in terms of whole grains. It has worked beautifully for me every time I sub brown rice for white rice in a dosa recipe. Next time, I will try all brown rice in this recipe.

The poha really helps the fermentation along, and this was the laciest and airiest dosa I have ever made in my life. It was great in the lunch-box too! I served this with pearl-onion sambar and parsley chutney (the normal coconut-cilantro-green chillies chutney but using parsley instead of cilantro because it was what I had on hand).

Poha dosas are very popular in the food blog world:
Sharmi’s Atukula Attlu looks incredibly spongy and uses sour yogurt or buttermilk to help the fermentation along.
Shilpa prefers to call her poha dosa Masti Dosa- that’s how much fun it is to make and eat!
Namratha’s Set Dosa comes with a great story of how that name came about.

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