Rural Technologies

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idli―a 300-year-old traditional food item of India and is prepared from naturally fermented batter made of rice and urad dal. Among different variants of idli cereal (Rice) can be replaced with millets. However, urad dal is indispensable when natural fermentation is desirable. The latter is primarily responsible for the soft and spongy texture of the finished product. Replacing urad dal with mung dal makes idli with harder texture which are sensorially unacceptable. Use of higher amount of dal or addition of baking soda were attempted to get better textural properties but are never close to traditional rice and urad idli. Millets have gained their own space in super markets as healthy nutrient rich premium alternatives of rice and wheat. Although, ready-to-cook millet idli dry premixes are available in the market but they add baking soda for imparting the spongy texture via CO2 generation, which otherwise happens during fermentation due to microbial activities. Thus, presently, naturally fermented rice/millet-mung idli with textural properties very close to traditional idli is not available in the market.

The present technology "Naturally Fermented fibre fortified Rice / Millet Idli using Moong as an alternative to Urad" developed by BARC employs judicially selected millets and fibre for making soft and spongy idli. Further, this technology not only completely replaces the urad and baking soda in idli preparation but also retains the natural fermentation step which is essential for improved sensory and nutritive characteristics.