Idiyappam

The dough is pressed through a press into noodles and then steamed.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 400 g fine rice flour
• 500 ml water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 60 g grated coconut, to scatter

Method

1. THE DOUGH IS PRESSED THROUGH A PRESS INTO NOODLES AND THEN STEAMED. Its article gives the dish as rice flour pressed into noodles, laid into a flat disc-like shape and steamed -- and notes that the order varies: in most of Kerala and Tamil Nadu it is steamed AFTER being pressed, while in the Kongu region a steamed ball of rice flour is pressed instead, a reverse process. This page does the commoner one. Either way the defining act is extrusion: nothing else in this family is forced through holes, and the result is a nest of separate strands rather than a sheet or a cake.
2. THE FLOUR IS COOKED WITH BOILING WATER FIRST, NOT COLD. Water brought to a full boil with the salt and oil, then poured onto the flour all at once and stirred hard. Raw rice flour and cold water give a dough that crumbles in the press.
3. IT IS KNEADED WHILE IT IS ALMOST TOO HOT TO HANDLE. As soon as it can be touched. A cooled dough stiffens and the strands break as they come out.
4. THE DOUGH IS SOFT -- SOFTER THAN YOU WOULD THINK. It should take a fingerprint easily. If the press needs real force, the dough is too dry; work in a tablespoon of hot water.
5. IT IS PRESSED STRAIGHT ONTO THE STEAMER PLATES. In overlapping circles to build a flat round nest, three or four layers deep. Pressed onto a board and moved, it tangles and compacts.
6. FINE HOLES, NOT COARSE. The whole character is thread thin. A press with wide holes gives something closer to a short noodle.
7. SIX TO EIGHT MINUTES IN A HOT STEAMER, AND NO LONGER. They are thin and already half cooked by the boiling water. Over-steamed they collapse into a single mass.
8. COCONUT IS SCATTERED ON WHILE THEY ARE HOT. Grated fresh coconut, and often a little sugar or a sweet coconut milk alongside. It is a breakfast dish and it is eaten with both sweet and savoury things.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

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