Spicy Spinach Steamed & Fermented Cakes



These moulds are my compartments in my round spice box. I wanted the batter to rise into this shape.

 I was up and about doing what I like most and that is experimenting in my lab(read kitchen) and on one my fav guinea pigs (read husband). Got myself a nice bunch of spinach and washed it thoroughly and set it aside.

Chopped a few pods of garlic and blanched the spinach and later ground the blanched spinach along with these finely chopped garlic, two green chillies and a tsp. of cumin seeds to a paste.

Added this paste to my Idli batter like so :-


Blanched Chopped Spinach



 The Spinach paste goes into the batter and is mixed so as to give a nice green and healthy colour to one part of my batter. To the other part of the batter I just added a few whole spices like cumin seeds,pepper corns, broken red chillies and shredded ginger. Check for salt in both parts of batter after adding the spinach and spices. Add more if required. You may toast the spices if you wish.

Once the batter is ready, grease your moulds, preferably the steel moulds of the shape I have shown or use steel glass tumblers. Pour one part of the batter initially, steam it and then pour the next part of the batter over the steamed portion as is shown in the pics, follow the alternate layering and steaming of the idlis. Wait for them to cool completely before unmoulding them to serve yourself or your guests :)

I have just place the two layered idlis one on top of the other in the form of a tower for a perfect picture presentation.