South Indian cuisine has become one of the go-to comfort foods of India. Whether it’s piping hot idlis, crispy dosas, feathery appams, or crunchy vadas – there are so many yummy delights to choose from. Rice and dal are prominently used in the making of a number of South Indian recipes, as they are ground together and fermented overnight. This batter can then be used to prepare multiple South Indian dishes. There are two prominent ways to prepare the multi-purpose South Indian batter – by using raw rice or boiled rice. Recently, food researcher Swetha Sivakumar ran a unique experiment comparing the two batters. Take a look:
Why do idli/dosa recipes always ask for parboiled rice? or idli rava (which is essentially parboiled grits)?
What happens if we makes idli, dosa batter with just raw rice?
To find out, I ran an experiment and here are the results: pic.twitter.com/XotvQoQt9Y— Swetha Sivakumar (@Upgrade_My_Food) December 10, 2021
The Experiment:
Make 2 batters -> 1 made with urad dal + parboiled rice, the other with urad dal + raw rice.
Observe the differences in the resultant batter, idli and dosa made from these 2 types.
Step 1: Soak pic.twitter.com/VJjScIUs62
— Swetha Sivakumar (@Upgrade_My_Food) December 10, 2021
(Also Read: British Man Calls Idli Boring, Shashi Tharoor And A Bunch Of Desi Netizens Aren’t Pleased)
The tweets were shared by Swetha Sivakumar on her handle @Upgrade_My_Food. The unique experiment has raked in over 2.8k likes and hundreds of comments and retweets. In the thread, she explained that she was trying to understand the difference between idli batter prepared with raw rice versus that using parboiled rice. The experiment aimed to find out the differences in the two batters in terms of the texture, as well as the Idlis and Dosas that were prepared with it.
First, Sivakumar soaked both the versions of rice and then used the same ratio of Urad Dal and water to grind the two batters. She noticed that the raw rice batter was more smooth when compared to the one made with boiled rice. Next, she fermented the two batters and observed that the raw rice Idli batter took more time to ferment. As for the Idlis and Dosas prepared with the batter, the researcher said that the Idli was fluffier in the case of the boiled rice batter. Dosa, on the other hand, was crispier and tastier when made with the raw rice batter. Take a look at her observations:
Conclusions:
Batter
Parboiled rice batter ferments quickly and more easily compared to raw rice battersIdli
Idli rises better, has more spring and is poofier, when made with parboiled rice compared to raw riceDosa
Dosa made with raw rice batter is crispier and tastier.— Swetha Sivakumar (@Upgrade_My_Food) December 10, 2021
This Idli batter experiment indeed made for an interesting insight! What did you think of the experiment by the Twitter user? Tell us in the comments below.
About Aditi AhujaAditi loves talking to and meeting like-minded foodies (especially the kind who like veg momos). Plus points if you get her bad jokes and sitcom references, or if you recommend a new place to eat at.
For all the latest health News Click Here
