Idiyappam / Sevai (Rice String Hoppers)

Idiyappam or string hoppers or sevai  is a low calorie, stomach friendly dish since it is a steamed one. This is a famous breakfast recipe among the people of Kerala, Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. This is very safe for babies, older and convalescent people. Whenever we go to the doctor for fever, diarrhea or vomiting, his list includes idiyappam next to idli. So every mom should know the art of making this delicious idiyappam.

Idiyappam can be made with different flours and when it is combined with other ingredients, make varieties of idiyappam , sweet, savoury and so many. Today I am going to post the simple idiyappam recipe. I’ll post the other varieties in due course.

Ingredients:

• Idiyappam flour – 1 cup
• Water – 1 ½ cups
• Gingelly oil – 1 tbsp
• Salt to taste

Method:

1. Sieve idiyappam flour well . Transfer this flour into a large bowl and ½ tsp salt with this flour and mix well. Keep it aside.
2. Bring water to rolling boil. Add gingelly oil to water and pour this boiled water to the rice flour slowly, stirring the flour with a ladle. Stop adding water when the dough becomes smooth.
3. Quickly knead the dough well with a ladle itself and put this hot dough in the kitchen press (idiyappam press) and close the kitchen press. Press and swirl the idiyappam press on a greased idli plate in circular fashion so that the rice strings fall over smoothly.
4. Place this idli plate in a idli maker with steaming water. Cook this for 10 minutes.

Lovely idiyappam is ready to serve. Today I prepared Thengaippaal sodhi (தேங்காய்ப்பால் சொதி) using coconut milk as side dish for idiyappam. This is very easy to prepare and is a yummy combo!

Note:

• If you use plain raw rice flour for making idiyappam, slightly dry fry the flour without changing the colour.
• Only the hot dough is easy to squeeze out into strings. So, don’t prepare the dough at a stretch, do it in batches.
• Add correct amount of water. If water added is less, it will be very hard to press. If you add excess water, then strings will not be formed.

Tags: Idiyappam recipe, sevai recipe, Plain idiyappam, Rice string hoppers, arisi idiyappam