So there I was on Friday night, thinking desperately what to serve the family for dinner at such a late stage, and the idea of Rajitha's Dhal Banjari presented itself (see previous post). That was a huge relief, but then the question of what to accompany it remained.

Now, ideally I would have rounded out the Rajasthani meal with makki ki roti, but coming home so late, I wasn't really looking forward to rolling roti. So I started free-associating, and ended up turning rava idli into corn idli.

I mean, why not?

The concept basically involved replacing some of the wheat rava with corn rava, and adding corn kernels to the mixture. The important thing to note here is that in the US, much of the corn rava (and corn flour) that is available is the so-called "hominy" kind. The adjective hominy is applied to corn when the bran and germ has been removed by soaking it in a lye solution. Many people (especially in the South) grow up eating it and loving the taste.

Personally, I cannot stand it, and when I buy any corn flour or corn rava, I check to make sure that it isn't hominy, or I just won't buy it.

For defrosting the corn (or any vegetables for that matter) I believe in placing it in a bowl and adding cold tap water to it (well, filtered water in India of course). After a few minutes, I might give it a little stir to encourage some of the clumps to break up and if it is a dense vegetable, I might change the water once.

But I never, never put hot water on the frozen vegetables - unless of course I intend to cook them that way. Counter-intuitively, cool water defrosts items much more quickly than hot (think of the inverse square law) and it doesn't spoil the texture of the food.

For this recipe you could replace the frozen corn with a can of whole corn kernels, well drained. Of course, if you are in the lucky position of having fresh corn on the cob to hand, slice off the kernels until you have a cup full, and then boil them quickly for three minutes and drain well.

Traditionally rava idli recipes call for baking soda (also known as bicarbonate of soda, soda bicarb etc.); this reacts with the acid in the curds and forms the leavening of the batter.

The problem with baking soda is that just a little too much (or a little unevenly mixed in) soda turns the mixture brown with a horrible brackish taste. So, I replace the baking soda with baking powder which is a much more stable and reliable mixture, needing only liquid as a catalyst since it has all the reagents in itself.

If you insist on using baking soda instead, and if you are better than I am in controlling it, this amount of rava and curds would usually take a quarter of a teaspoon of baking soda.

The amount in this mixture was enough to make four plates of idli.