Why Is Idli Batter Mostly Made With Boiled Rice? Twitter User's Viral Experiment Explains

South Indian cuisine is one of the most diverse one in India. And while we may have tons of options that spans dosas, appams and vadas, my personal favourite always at any south Indian restaurant or at home has always been soft and fluffy idlis. Easy to cook, Idli makes for a light and wholesome meal any time of the day. And most importantly, the sheer joy of feasting on piping hot idlis dipped in tangy and flavourful sambar is above all. No wonder it has become one of the go-to comfort foods of India. One of the most important ingredients of Idli is rice. A batter of rice and dal is often used to prepare multiple South Indian dishes. And there are two prominent ways to prepare the multi-purpose South Indian batter - by using raw rice or boiled rice, out of which the latter is one of the most preferred choices. You know why? Food researcher Swetha Sivakumar's unique experiment will let you know.  

She conducted an experiment comparing the two batters to see which one yield what sort of result, and shared the process on Twitter. Take a look:

— Swetha Sivakumar (@Upgrade_My_Food) December 10, 2021

 

The tweets were shared by Swetha Sivakumar on her handle @Upgrade_My_Food. In the Twitter thread, she explained that she was trying to understand the difference between idli batter prepared with raw rice versus that using parboiled rice. "Why do idli/dosa recipes always ask for parboiled rice? or idli rava (which is essentially parboiled grits)? What happens if we make idli, dosa batter with just raw rice?” she wrote in her tweet.  The experiment aimed to find out the differences in the two batters in terms of their texture besides the end results of Idlis and Dosas that were prepared with it. The unique and interesting experiment has garnered over 2.8k likes and hundreds of comments and retweets. 

The experiment begins with Sivakumar soaking both the versions of rice and then used the same ratio of Urad Dal and water to grind the two batters. Post that, she observed that the raw rice batter was more smooth as compared to the one made with boiled rice. Though the raw rice idli batter took more time to ferment. As for the end result, the researcher said that the Idli was fluffier in the case of the boiled rice batter. So, no points of guessing why boiled rice is most often used across Idli preparations. But Dosa, on the other hand, was crispier and tastier when made with the raw rice batter. Take a look at her observations:

This Idli batter experiment indeed has made quite interesting observations. Will you try raw rice batter to make Idli or Dosas? Let us know.