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Wash the rice and pick over the beans and wash them separately. Pour the rice into about a quart of vigorously boiling water and let it cook exactly three minutes, then remove and drain immediately. The rice will swell a little, but it should not become soft or white.

1 cup short- or medium-grain brown rice (200 g)

½ cup split black gram or garbanzo beans (100 g)

1 cup water, for grinding (235 ml)

½ teaspoon salt (2.75 g)

Soak the parboiled rice and the dal separately in tepid water for 6 to 8 hours at warm room temperature. Drain, but do not rinse.

To blend the legumes a mortar and pestle are used in India. Here put enough in the blender or processor to cover the blades and add tepid water to nearly, but not quite, cover. Blend to a smooth, medium-thick paste; the garbanzo paste will be a little less smooth than that made from the dal. Repeat as necessary until all the beans are blended.

Measure the rice and water into the blender in the same way. Blend, but before the mixture loses its granular quality, stop and feel its consistency with your fingers. Do not let it become completely smooth. It should feel like a thick paste with many grains of sand scattered throughout.

Combine the rice and legume pastes, and add the salt. Use your clean hands to stir the mixture vigorously for seven to ten minutes: this step is essential. It incorporates air into the mixture so that it changes from a heavy paste to a light batter. Hand-mixing may also help to set up the right fermentation, but we have also used an electric mixer at medium speed and have had good results. The batter should be thick, of dropping consistency. If yours is too thin, make Dosas instead of iddlis this time: see the recipe.

Set the iddli batter aside to ferment in a covered container, like a glass baking dish. The batter is ready when it rises up in the bowl and looks bubbly on the surface. If you keep it at room temperature, from 70° to 80°F, it will take 24 to 30 hours to ferment properly. Kept warmer than 90°F it will lose its delicate mild flavor and become fiercely sour. If your house is too cool, keep the batter in the oven with the pilot or light bulb on, holding the door partway open with a rolled-up towel, or else find a place where you can maintain a 70° to 80°F temperature.

Traditionally the cups for cooking the iddli are greased with ghee, a specially prepared sort of clarified butter; but regular butter or any semisolid shortening will do. Spoon about three tablespoons of batter into each cup. Since poached-egg containers are a little deeper than iddli cups, they should be only about two-thirds full. Steam over boiling water in a tightly covered pan for about 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. They should rise beautifully and be light and fluffy, gently rounded on the top.

Remove the pan from the steam and let the iddli stand in their cups for a minute, then scoop them out with a table knife. They should come out easily. Butter and serve hot. The batter can be kept for one day in the refrigerator, then brought to room temperature, and steamed.

Makes about 12 iddlis.

Dosas

If you have more than enough iddli batter for one meal, you can thin it out and use it to make dosas, a crepe-thin pancake. Thin with water to the consistency of crepe batter and pour and turn it in a skillet as you would a crepe. For a more authentic and crisper version, spoon a slightly thicker batter into the center of a griddle heated slightly less than for pancakes. Use the back of a large spoon to spread the batter thin in a clockwise spiral. Turn when slightly brown and pulling away from the pan.

Eat dosas as you would a savory crepe, or serve them with this delicious chutney.

Meera’s Chutney

¾ cup shredded coconut

2 tablespoons oil

1 chopped onion

2 cloves garlic

4 ripe tomatoes, chopped

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

½ teaspoon salt

1 green chili (optional)

1 tablespoon oil

¼ teaspoon