Ramasseri Idli

Ramasseri’s claim to fame is a simple breakfast dish, soft flat breakfast cakes called Ramasseri idli. Idli is a staple breakfast dish all over south India. These soft, moist, steamed cakes are made with fermented batter made from rice and dal  They taste little salty with a hint of sourness. Various accompaniments served with it enhance its taste. Traditionally idlis are steamed in stacks of Idli plates. What makes Ramasseri idli special is its shape, feather light texture and an earthy aroma acquired from steam cooking in unglazed clay pots.

Ramasseri is a small village in Palakkad District. People from distant places visit this village to taste the famous Ramassary idli. It special feature is that it has nmore shelf life than the normal idlis made at the homes. Hence, when people travel in trains for long distances, thery prefer to have Ramassari idli with them which can be served a good breakfast during journey. It can also be served during lunch also.

The Mudaliars of Ramasseri are the traditional cooks who prepare this idli. Today restaurants from neighboring towns arrive in this village very early in the morning to collect idlis to sell at their establishments. Somehow restaurants and professional chefs have not mastered the technique of preparing this dish. They still continue to buy them from local homes in this village.

We got an opportunity to visit Ramasseri recently We visited a home, which was also working as a hotel for supply of Idlis. The front yard of the house was swept clean. There was an open veranda in the front with terra cotta tiled floors and whitewashed walls.

A lady invited us to his house/restaurant. Right behind the veranda was a very small kitchen with three wood burning stoves across the back wall. A large pot of idli batter was kept on a small raised platform on one side of the stove. A woman was in the process of making idli. She covered eight-inch round clay containers with pieces of wet cotton cloth. Fire logs flickered as they burned under blackened steamer pots. She stirred a large pot of batter vigorously with a ladle. Then poured ladle full of batter on each of the prepared clay steamer containers. She stacked four of them, one over the other, and carefully placed the stack in the steamer. She covered it with another large blackened pot.

By then the idli steaming on the adjacent steamer was ready. She lifted the cover, and slowly removed the stack of clay containers and they had hollow bottoms. They were tightly stringed with twine, almost like a tennis racquet. And the piece of cotton cloth was spread over these strings. She placed a large flat jackfruit leaf over the idli and slowly turned it upside down. The idli slid

Family recipes are never secret in Kerala. People are only too happy to share them. But they firmly believe that the quality of a dish depends on the cook's kaipunyam (god given skill for preparing tasty dishes). House owner narrated the recipe from memory “Soak one kilogram of good parboiled rice and hundred grams of black gram in separate pots for several hours. Wash and remove the skin of gram, and grind it along with a large pinch of fenugreek seeds to a smooth thick batter. Wash and grind the rice separately and combine the two. Add salt to taste and stir well. Cover and set aside, and let the batter ferment overnight".

“
 “Do not stack more than four idlis at a time, and steam till they are cooked. Cook them only on wood burning stoves, and always use wood from tamarind tree" “And when they are ready, do remove them from the clay steamers with a large leaf from jack tree".