Cracked Wheat Idli

A recent addition to my cook book collection is Dakshin: Vegetarian Cuisine from South India by Chandra Padmanabhan. It has some really good pictures and I can't resist a cookbook with pretty pictures :-) This book has a wonderful collection of South Indian recipes, most of them traditional but a few that were very new to me. I hope to try them in the near future and post them soon in my blog. Idli is a staple in most Tamil (as in Tamilnadu) homes and Ms. Padmanabhan dedicates a whole section of the book to idlis! I have been eyeing rava (semolina) idli for a long time having come across quite a few in the blog world. So I decided to make rava idli for dinner from the recipe in the book except that I substituted rava with cracked wheat and tweaked the recipe to suit our taste. I love the taste and texture of cracked wheat - not to mention the whole lot of goodness packed in it. These idlis turned out to be very soft and yummy.... Guess this will be added on to my oft-repeated-recipe collection. Bulgur is a good substitute too and for people who are wondering isnt bulgur and cracked wheat the same, do read this very interesting article.

Ingredients:
11/2 cups cracked wheat
1/2 cup rava
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 green chillies, finely chopped
1 tsp chopped/ground ginger
5-6 cashews halved or quartered (optional)
2 tsp chana dal
1 tsp split urad dal
2 tsp jeera
2 tsp mustard
1/2 tsp asafoetida
few curry leaves
Salt to taste
1 tsp coarse ground pepper
3 cups buttermilk or more if required
2 tsp oil

Method:

1. Mix cracked wheat, rava and soda together.
2. Heat oil in a pan, add chana dal, urad dal, cashew, jeera and mustard. When they crackle add chillies, ginger, asafoetida and curry leaves.
3. Remove from the stove and add this to the wheat/rava mixture.
4. Add buttermilk, salt, pepper and mix well until a smooth batter is obtained. Consistency should be similar to idli batter.
5. Grease idli plates and fill it with the batter. Steam for 10-15 min until a knife/toothpick inserted at the center of the idlis comes out clean.

I served the idlis with tomato korma though idili powder or chutney will work very well. I hope to post the recipe for tomato korma soon :-)

This will be my entry to Tasty Palettes "JFI - OCT '08 - Whole Grains".

And here is my first blog award presented by Easy Crafts of Simple Indian Food blog, yay :-) Thanks a lot Easy Crafts for the encouragement. I appreciate it. As per the rules of this award, you are to pass this award to at least 7 other blogs whose content/design you find brilliant. I am guilty of being a silent visitor sometime and I use this opportunity to let my blogger friends know how much I appreciate their work.

I present this award to:

Asha of Foodie's Hope
Manasi of A Cook at Heart
Srivalli of Cooking 4 all Seasons
Usha of Veg Inspirations
Kitchen Flavours
Meeta of Whats for Lunch Honey
Vaishali of Holy Cow