The Dirty Idli

Last weekend my hubby came back from his official tour. He wanted to give me surprise by cooking for me. But the interesting part was that he wanted to make idli for me which he learnt on internet. He did not listen to my words and started to prepare the batter. the worst part was that he decided to prepare it from urad dal with skin that my M-I-L had brought for us from home town. Can you believe this; he was going to prepare idli from urad dal having skin. Any way, he tried his best to soak the rice and dal properly. To his bad luck, the movie ‘The Dirty Picture’ was going on. So there he was switching between kitchen and the drawing room. And yes, I was barred from entering the kitchen that day; after all it was a surprise for me. I could only guess from the sound of the grinder that, he was not making the batter for idli rather he was watching movie and occasionally he was going to the kitchen to make the batter; that also with great hurriedness so that he finishes the job quickly for the sake of the movie.

Well, in the next morning, after 8 hrs of complete fermentation, the batter was ready. I was silently observing his heroics in the kitchen without saying anything. I was only worried that, if it goes very bad then how much food will be wasted? Alas! My apprehensions came very true in the morning. The batter was very thin for idli. So what my great intelligent hubby did? He made it thick by adding suji rawa (semolina). I was thinking whether to laugh or cry at this act but did not tell anything. So, after an hour long jugglery with the idli cooker, finally it was ready. When I first saw the shape, size and color of the idli, I thought ‘Why this kolaveri’. Yah, exactly it was like a killer rage idli, black and hard; As if this was born in some African country. Normally when you see an idli, its soft tender nature is so inviting, you feel like devouring it in one single bite. But this idli was different. It was like the idli itself challenging you to eat it. As if it is saying- ‘hey man, if you have guts, then eat me and survive, ha ha ha…….’.

Finally I could muster up some courage to eat it, it was eatable though. I named this as ‘The Dirty Idli’ to attribute the movie ‘The Dirty Picture’. And I said to my hubby that no more surprises for me at least on food front. Really somethings should always be left to the experts only.