Quinoa Idli-A Very Healthy Steamed Cake/Quinoa Uthappam

I have been using Quinoa for few years now in my kitchen in making traditional Indian dishes.You can find my other recipes with Quinoa here , here and here.Today I am posting the recipe for Quinoa Idli that I made recently.This is again one of my experiments with Quinoa and turned out great.I have many more Quinoa recipe to share with you soon.For now enjoy this yummy and healthy Idli.

I did not want the flavor of Quinoa to be dominated by the Urad or Rice so I added all of them in equal quantities and made the idli.It's a super hit and got a green signal for permanent residency in our menu. 

This is how I made it-----------------------

Main Ingredients :

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Quinoa.................................1cup

Urad Daal............................1cup

Brown Rice..........................1cup(Whole High Fibre Short Grain Brown Rice)

Seasoning Ingredients :

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Salt.....................................to taste

Oil.....................................for greasing the idli moulds

Preparation :

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Rinse and soak urad daal , quinoa and brown rice over-night (6 to 8 hrs) in separate bowls.

Next day morning you will see that the urad and rice are well soaked and the quinoa is well soaked and sprouted too.(Could not capture the sprouts clearly).

First grind the urad to a batter nice and smooth using less water and pour it into a bowl.

Later grind brown rice to a smooth batter using less water as well.Now add the brown rice batter to the urad batter and mix well.

Now grind the quinoa to a smooth batter using less water as well and pour it into urad-rice batter ,add salt and mix well.

Place the bowl of batter in the oven with the light on and let it ferment for 6 to 8 hours.You can see in the pictures how well the batter is fermented .

Once the batter is fermented take it out mix well and check for salt and adjust salt accordingly.

Now take a pan/idli cooker/pressure cooker ( in which the idli stand can fit ) and place it on the stove on medium- high heat and pour 2 glasses of water.While the water in the pan or cooker is heating  up grease the idli moulds with oil and spoon the batter into the moulds.Do not overfill.

Place the idli stand in the pan/cooker and cook it covered for 15 to 20 minutes and then switch off the stove.
(If using pressure cooker do not put the cooker whistle).

Wait for the steam to settle down and take the idli stand out and remove the quinoa idlis into a bowl or hot pack.

Serve the yummy and healthy Quinoa Idlies with Chutney , Sambhar or Chutney Powder of your choice.

Along with the idlis I made small pancakes or utappams with this batter and I should say they really came out so nice and spongy like the western pancakes.

We had the Quinoa Idlies and Quinoa Utappam with Dalia-Coconut chutney and CurryLeaves-Lentil Powder.


Try these wonderful idlies and let me know how you like them.

Note :
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1) After fermentation if you taste the batter it feels bitter because of the natural bitterness in the Quinoa but once you make the idlis or utappams you will not feel the bitterness in it as Quinoa tends to loose the bitterness after it's cooked.
2) As this was the first time I made idly with Quinoa I did not add too many ingredients to it as I like to enjoy the original flavors at first.Now that I know how it tastes I will try adding veggies to this batter next time and make vegetable idlies.

This goes to CWF-WG : Quinoa Event hosted by Priya Mitharwal .