Red Bell Pepper Chutney with Peanuts and Idli's with Black Urad dhal

Well, Spring has officially started this month over here. Along with blooming flowers it has brought pollen allergies and some typical spring viruses causing the seasonal flu. My home has been hit with them all one after another and we all are recovering in a slow pace. While there is regular cooking and experimenting with food done in my kitchen as always, there's not much time to relax and take a few pictures to blog about it.
Today I realised that its been almost two weeks since I made a post and decided to get to it. So here's the most famous breakfast of all time - 'Idli' with a twist to give an extra dose of fibre and a fiery red chutney to go with it.
Couple of weeks back when I was cleaning my kitchen shelves, I saw a packet of long forgotten black urad dhal. I remember buying them during my first visit to the Indian stores over here. Since I could not find any white urad dhal there, I grabbed a packet of these in a desperate mode to make Idli's that weekend. But later that week I somehow got the Urad dhal from an other store and these black ones were moved back to the far corner of the shelf. This time when I found them, I decided to try Idli's with it. Unlike the regular ones, this has to be soaked for a longer time, atleast over night to get a smooth consistency of the batter.
There is not much difference in taste and obviously it becomes more healthy and rich in fiber.

For the Idli's:
Ingredients:
4 cups of Boiled rice/Idli rice
1 cup Whole black urad dha;
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
salt as required


Method:
Soak rice and whole Bback urad dhal along with fenugreek seeds , seperatly over night.
Grind the urad dhal first to smooth consistency, and then grind the rice in three batches.
Mix them well in a vessel, along with required salt and allow it to ferment for 8 - 10 hrs.
It took 16 hrs for me, here, to get the batter right.
Pour the batter to the Idli trya and steam in the pressure cooker (without weight) for 10 mins in medium heat.

Red Bell Pepper Chutney


Ingredients:
 1 Red Bell Pepper
2 tblsp split urad dhal
3 red chillies
1 inch piece of tamarind
handful of roasted peanuts


Method:
Dry roast the urad dhal and red chillies.
Add a tsp of oil to the pan and stir fry the chopped bell pepers for about 4 mins.
Add all ingredients to the mixer and grind till smooth.


Seasoning:
Add a tsp of mustard ,1 tsp of urad dhal and curry leaves to a tsp of hot oil and pour it over the Chutney. Serve with Idli/Dosai.

The chutney is not as fiery as it looks but it sure tasted heavenly. Adjust the amount of redchillies as per the variety and taste.