[MUSIC] Hello, everyone. I'm Maya. Welcome to my kitchen. Today I'd like to show you how to make something called idlis. Idlis are a steamed, rice-based bun that Indian children eat for breakfast. My children call them fluffy clouds for short, and they're just delicious and chewy, and I think your kids will like them, too. So the first thing you need is something called an egg poacher. And it's a very simple contraption that has a bottom section where you can put water in and then six little cups that you could use to poach eggs. But I use them for idlis and for many other steamed things. So I've put some water in the bottom of this steamer already, and I'm just going to slide it over onto a nice hot element. And we're going to let that boil while we mix together our idli ingredients, and they're very simple ingredients. We've got some rice flour which happens to be gluten free, this whole dish is gluten free. And then we're going to add some desiccated coconut. You can use sweetened or unsweetened, but if you do use sweetened coconut, you might want to reduce the amount of sugar in your recipe. And then we're going to add a little bit of sugar. I've used unsweetened desiccated coconut, so I'm going to add about a third of a cup of sugar. And then we need some raising agents, so baking powder, and a little bit of baking soda. And then, so this is the best part. This is a spice called cardamom, and it's kind of like cinnamon, but a little bit more exotic smelling. And it comes in these tiny little pods. So the first thing you have to do, if you're using real cardamom like this, is you have to crack the pods open. And then just ease the little black seeds out from the inside into your mortar and pestle. [MUSIC] And then you throw away the husk. [MUSIC] So I've used three little cardamom pods for one batch of idlis. Depending on how big your cardamom pods are, you might want to use three or four pods. If you're short of time, please feel free to use the stuff that you buy ready ground like this from Whole Foods or from a supermarket because this is just as good. This gives a slightly more pungent flavor to your idlis. I'm just going to pound it up now. [NOISE] And once your cardamom is finely ground like this, you can just add it to your mix. [NOISE] Then I'm going to mix up my dry ingredients. You don't even need a whisk to do this breakfast and it's so, tastes so homemade and fresh. The last thing I'm going to add is some just Russian style plain yogurt. So this is unsweetened yogurt and it adds a little bit of a sour taste to the idlis. But it kind of balances the coconut and the sweetness. And then I'm going to just lift the yogurt into the dry mix. So I'm not going to really whip it together. I'm just going to kind of incorporate the wet mix into the dry mix until I have a thick paste. [MUSIC] My mom used to say you're supposed to keep the air in, not whip the air out. I think there's some kind of chemical reaction that happens between the acidity of the yogurt and the raising agents, that actually causes this to start to rise in your bowl. [MUSIC] And there we go. Now luckily, my poacher is boiling already and I'm just going to use something to lift up the lid so I don't burn myself. [MUSIC] And I'm going to put a tiny little piece of butter at the bottom of each egg poaching dish. This is both for flavor and so that the idlis don't stick. [MUSIC] Most of these egg poaching pans are kind of, they have a non-stick lining anyway. So I guess it's mostly for flavor but if you can add a tiny bit of butter for your children's breakfast, why not? Okay, now I'm going to scoop the idli mixture into these little cups and I'll fill them about three quarters of the way. [MUSIC] Just to be fair, a little bit more in that one and then we're going to cover this up and just let it steam for about five to seven minutes and we got fluffy clouds. What more could you ask for? That's it. [MUSIC] So our idlis have just finished steaming. Our first customer of the day is here, this is Misha. He's the guy who coined the term fluffy cloud, and I'm going to serve him one right now and we'll see what he has to say. Okay, so we're going to use some tongs to lift this little poaching cups up And then we're going to tip them out and we should just wait until it cools down a bit. And see they just pop right out. And then what we're going to do, if you can get your children to hold off for a minute, we're just going to slice it in half. Just be careful because it's a little bit hot. And it's, we're going to cut it in half like this. We're going to put a little bit of butter on both sides, and the butter melts right in there. They get so excited just by the smell of this, it smells like coconut and cardamom and all sorts of good things. Okay, wait wait, hold on one second Mish. And now I'm just going to take a tiny bit of sugar and I'm just going to sort of nudge my spoon so that a little bit of the sugar falls onto the top of the butter. Melted butter with a tiny bit of sugar on top. [MUSIC] Okay, Mish. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [NOISE] Get a child on camera and this is what happened. Okay Mish, look this are for your brothers and yours is going to be ready in one minute when it cools down. >> One minute, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, [INAUDIBLE] >> I think it's ready. You want to try it? >> [SOUND] [MUSIC] >> So, those are idlis, very easy to make. You can serve them with some fresh fruit and maybe a bit of scrambled eggs on the side or a sunny side up egg, and you got a complete breakfast. I'm Maya. Thanks for joining us. Hope to see you again soon. [MUSIC]
