Carving of Idly from the Batter

Starchy foods make up about a third of the food we eat. Idly, derived out of the starch legume combination, idly has been a part of South Indian cuisine from time immemorial. Idly is prepared by soaking, after washing the parboiled milled rice grains and decorticated black gram for 6 to 8h at room temperature of 30±1°C, wet grinding the raw materials after draining the water and keeping for fermentation overnight with 1% salt. The batter is steamed for 10–15 minutes which moulds the product through gelatinization. A starch pasting profile vividly portrays the changes taking place in gelatinization. Starch pasting studies were conducted with batter made from idly rice/kodo millet and blackgram and their respective flours in the starch cell of the Anton Paar rheometer. We used a rice/millet blackgram ratio of 2: 1 for the trials, with a water input of twice the weight of the raw material for the preparation of the batter so as to achieve a loose consistency. Kodo millet (whole as well as its flour) batter samples exhibited a higher pasting temperature (73.67°C and 73.93°C) whereas it was only 72.05°C and 72.95°C for whole rice and flour samples which indicates more cooking time for millet samples. Peak viscosity of the whole rice blackgram mix (2019.5 cP) and kodo millet blackgram mix (3326.3 cP) were high compared to their flour blends (1361.5 cP and 1693.98 cP). Similarly breakdown was higher in whole batter compared to flour blend. Breakdown is an indication of the paste stability. Low set back was yet another noticeable feature.