Green SPINACH IDLIS – with mustard tadka and CHILLI GARLIC sauce

Ingredients

• 2 cups of fresh Spinach
• 3 green chillies
• 1 inch piece of ginger
• Juice of 1 Lime
• Water
• 1 cup Rice flour
/2 cup Urad flour
• 3 tsps Eno or fruit salt
• 2 tsps oil
• 1 tsp blacksalt
• Mustard oil
• Tadka - black mustard seeds, curry leaves, slit green fresh chillies and slit dried red chillies in a little bit of oil.
• Red Chilli Garlic sauce

Instructions

1. Grind 2 cups of fresh Spinach with 3 green chillies and a 1 inch piece of ginger together with the juice of 1 Lime
2. Add a tiny bit of water to help it come to a smooth paste
3. Add 1 cup of rice flour to a bowl with half a cup of Urad flour. You can find this lentil flour at most Indian or ethnic stores, it's made for black dehusked lentils that are dried and ground to a powder
4. Mix these together with one tsp of Eno fruit salt
5. Add all of the Spinach Chilli paste
6. Add a little water into the food processor and add this as well and stir to form a smooth batter
7. Add 2 tsps oil and 1 tsp blacksalt & let this sit in a warm place for 30 mins
8. Prepare the idli stands by brushing them with some mustard oil.
9. Divide the batter into 2 bowls as only half the batter will fit the molds.
10. Add 1 tsp Eno or fruit salt to half the batter and fold it in. The batter gets all fizzy, this is exactly what you want. Quickly spoon this into the idli moulds and add to the pressure cooker
11. Pressure cookers usually come with a stopper that keeps all of the pressure in. If I use this for the idlis, the pressure built will not allow the idlis to cook properly. Instead the steam will press against the idli giving it too mush moisture and will not allow it to rise
12. I'm going to cook it without the stopper allowing the steam to escape, but ever so often I will cover it with a stainless steel cup just to make sure we don't lose all the water in the pressure cooker
13. Cook for 10 mins. Once this is done, take the stand out, allow it to cool and free the idlis with a spoon
14. To serve I'm going to make a quick tadka, this is a tempering of black mustard seeds, curry leaves, slit green fresh chillies and slit dried red chillies in a little bit of oil
15. Pour these over your idlis and add a little dollop of festive Red Chilli Garlic sauce.