Vegetarian extremes - idlees

I seem to be almost stuck in a vegetarian theme at the moment. I do actually have a list of potential subjects but I didn't feel like tackling any of them today, so I did the lucky dip thing and came up with Idlee - Foamy White Steamed Rice and Bean Dumplings from Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Vegetarian Cooking.

I confess this was one of those lucky dips at which my heart sank - first of all the book, though I then thought that it actually fitted in with some of my recent posts, and then it sank even more when I turned to this particular page - with a very long recipe - a whole page long, and a very short (and boring and slightly obscure) list of ingredients. My heart sank even more when I read:

"It is made with a fermented batter containing soaked black gram bean paste and rice semolina."

It sounds almost repulsive and anyway where am I going to get those things? But then it turns out we are talking about rice flour and urad dal - well you can get them. Like the meat look-alike stuff I was talking about yesterday this recipe sort of epitomises all that is worst about vegetarianism - to me anyway. It did not sound tempting at all. Almost designed to put you off becoming a vegetarian. Even though she described it as a treat and that "children like to eat them with palm jaggery syrup, which is somewhat difficult to find in Britain. (Maybe not these days?) However, molasses, natural honey and maple syrup make good substitutes."

And according to Julie Sahni it is a "world-famous south Indian breakfast or tiffin treat." I think she may be wrong there - I have certainly never heard of them, and I don't think I have ever seen them on an Indian restaurant menu. And to add to my dismay - it also seems you need special moulds in which to make them - and a steamer with racks for the moulds. It also sounds extremely long and fiddly. You have to ferment the batter overnight, and you have to cut out little bits of muslin to line the moulds. Honestly! It's worth going to all this trouble for something that is going to taste absolutely delicious at the end of it - the Christmas turkey, my husband's sour dough bread ... but not for something that obviously needs a sauce or something similar to make it attractive, or even edible.

Really - is anyone going to attempt this? Though if she is right, then obviously the south Indian poor do - perhaps on a daily basis. It would certainly be cheap in the sense that there are few ingredients and what there are are very basic - even more so in India. Or do they buy them from a specialist idlee maker?

I won't give you the recipe - if you really want to have a go you can find the recipe on the net, but I will give you some of her words from her introduction, so that you can understand a little better what they are:

"The batter is poured into the depressions in the idlee moulds and steamed to yield porous, spongy cushions called idlee. The proportion of beans to rice is the most crucial element in making light and airy idlees: the rice is always twice the quantity of beans. The dumplings expand when they are steamed, and their nutritional value goes up with fermentation of the batter; they become rich in proteins that are easily digestible."

So, yes they are probably good for you, and Michael Mosley did go on about the benefits of fermented food, but they really don't sound that tempting. Her serving suggestion is not all that tempting either - "Make an indentation in the centre of the dumpling with your index finger or with the back of a wooden spoon. Pour about 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons sesame oil in the depressions and over the dumplings." Mind you most of the pictures I found on the net - including the one at the top of the page - implied that you served them with chutneys and other tasty things.

Which she does have elsewhere in her book.

Julie Sahni is now based in New York, where she writes and runs a cooking school. Her book Classic Indian Cooking - is considered by many to be the authority on Indian cooking. I don't have it so cannot comment. I think I bought her Classic Indian Vegetarian Cooking at a time when I thought we should be eating in a more vegetarian way. Which I still do really - but not like this. I certainly have used some of her spice mix recipes, and I probably should look at some of her other recipes some time. On the whole though, Madhur Jaffrey and Charmaine Solomon have been my Indian cooking gurus. Maybe this is because this book, and, by the looks of things, her others too, are not that attractively packaged. No pictures, not even any line drawings. Which shouldn't be a problem for me - after all, all my early cooking gurus' books were largely not illustrated. And there is certainly an argument that says a picture of a perfectly cooked and, more importantly, plated, dish is offputting. Still I think in this case a few pictures might have helped. It's difficult to get enthusiastic about the idea of cooking something new when you have nothing on the page other than words to tempt you. Or maybe it's just that the words for this particular recipe were not tempting.

At the end of the day I think vegetarianism is most likely the way to go in the future. The planet cannot sustain meat and fish production for much longer - well not at the current rate anyway. And vegetarianism need not be this daunting. Vegetables and grains and dairy foods are wonderful, beautiful things, and you can make wonderful things from them - as yesterday's nut roast demonstrated.

So idlee - one of those obscure ethnic foods that perhaps does not migrate well to other cultures - not like rogan josh or naan bread anyway.

POSTSCRIPT - A LITTLE LATER

I have been relaxing reading a book and thinking about this and that, and realised that I really have been somewhat patronising in this post. Here I am in my extremely privileged life, with nothing better to do than blog on food, and I choose to decry what is possibly a basic and much loved food for some of the world's less fortunate people. Not to mention vegetarians - who are possibly the way of the future and hence trailblazers. So whilst, for me, idlees seem to be a waste of immense time and effort, this is not to say that others might love them. In the same way that I love bread pudding. No doubt half the world would be repulsed by the notion of bread pudding.

It is interesting though, is it not, how some foods travel easily between cultures (I have been pondering on this as a future topic) and some don't?

But today I have been indulging myself at the expense of others' loves. Apologies.