p Box o' Spices: Lemon Idiappam

Monday, January 29, 2007

Lemon Idiappam

Idiappam is a south indian dish traditionally made with rice flour mixed with boiling water and pressed through tiny holes to give very thin noodles which are steamed. Then the noodles are used to make either a sweet dish with coconut or a spicy one with lemon or tomatoes. Some people alsos eat idiappam with kurma or even chicken curry.
Idiappam used to be a "special" breakfast at home growing up. When we had guests over for breakfast my mom would be in the kitchen for 3 hours making idiappam. We would have 3 kinds of idiappam sweet, lemon and tomato. Even though I loved idiappam I always thought that it was not worth the time and effort it took to make. Now we get such good "instant rice sevai" which tasted almost the same as the real 3-hour one that it doesnt makes sense to me not to use it.
Tomato idiappam used to be my most favorite and is the spiciest one of the three. I will post the recipe for that another day. Last night I wanted to make something very quick and light for dinner. I had bought a small packet of rice sevai (Concord brand) to try out. It was actually very good. In the US I have used rice noodles from Chinese stores to get similar results. But if rice sevai is available it is definitely better.



Instant Rice sevai: 1 small packet (100 grams)
Juice of 1 lemon
ginger: 1 small piece. grated
Cashewnuts. Broken. 1 tbsp. (optional)
Green chilies: 1 or according to taste
turmeric powder
Jeera, mustard, broken urad dal: 1/4 tsp each
Curry and coriander leaves

Boil some water and add the rice sevai to it. Turn the stove off after a minute. Leave for another 2-3 minutes until cooked and drain. You can run some cold water over it to make it non-sticky. (The brand of sevai didnt seem to need it).
Heat some oil, add seasoning, cashewnute, curry leaves and ginger and green chilies. Mix the lemon juice in equal amount of water, a pich of turmeric powder and salt to taste. Add to the pan, reduce heat and after a minute add the sevai. Mix well, allow to cook for a couple of minutes and add choppedd coriander leaves.

P.S. Do not cook the lemon jiuce for a long time. It may turn bitter. Just a few seconds may be enough before you add the sevai.

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3 Comments:

At 1:01 AM, Blogger Cash for Cars Indianapolis said...

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At 9:59 AM, Blogger FH said...

I did make once from rice and all.Too much work.I will try this brand,looks so thin and yummy!

 
At 10:37 AM, Blogger Kavitha said...

Thanks Asha
It was yummy and took about 15 min start to finish. can't beat that.

 

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