Foxtail Millet Kanchipuram Idli Thinai Kanchipuram Idli

Millet Kanchipuram Idli or Kanchipuram Idli using Foxtail millet or Thinai (in Tamil).

Recipe in short

I used whole grain foxtail millet soaked few hours and ground to thick smooth batter. Later added a small coarse textured rice rava , salt mixed all together and allowed to ferment well. Later seasoned or made tempering for the fermented batter, poured in stainless steel cups and steamed until toothpick inserted at the center comes out clear.

The recipe has variations to use instant store bought or homemade millet flour. The urad dal proportion according to wet grinder and Mixie methods. Also explained how to steam idli in instant pot.

Recipe Variations

Instant store bought Millet Flour can be used?

If using Instant millet flour do grind the urad dal alone. Add the Instant millet flour to the ground dal batter and since the instant flour is super fine in texture, a small tip from my practice is do add samba rava or idli rava or millet rave 1/4 cup to the batter for perfect coarse texture. Also while mixing add necessary water to consistency shown in stepwise pictures and allow to ferment with salt for 8-12 hours.

Mixie Vs Grinder Urad Batter

People for ease of work say to grind in mixie but honestly grinding in wet grinder gives the fluffy urad batter which helps the idli to rise very well and in wet grinder method less quantity urad dal is enough (say for 6-7 cups of millet or idli rice i use 1 cup dal ) and in mixer 4:1 ration of millet/rice:dal is needed. If you have only mixie/mixer do follow the dal proportion i mentioned in the ingredients list.

Replacement for Rice Rava?

Rice rava is gluten free yet if you want to skip rice totally in this recipe either add millet rava 1/4 cup or take 1.25 cup whole grain millet and grind it to coarse texture instead of fine paste as I mentioned in the preparation steps.

How it varies from Traditional Recipe?

Tradionally people use 1:1 portion of rice and dal and I have traditional kanchipuram idli even people use just raw rice and no idli rice to make this popular temple idli or milagu idli. Since I replaced the raw rice and idli rice both with millet here in this recipe, rhe 4:1 or 6:1 rice:dal proportion wont work here. And for fluffier idlis do follow grinder proportion or mixer proportion as mentioned below in the ingredients list. Also generous ghee while tempering/seasoning ingredients for the batter is must yet I used minimal quantity here in this recipe.

Also traditionally these idlis are steamed in Shona I or banana leaves. I have shown a short clip about it in the below video tutorial or do refer HERE to learn steaming idlis in banana leaves.

Know about Millets

millets are whole grains, gluten free and considered as good carb , so easily digestible.
it’s naturally high in nutrition and study says it boosts HDL (high density cholesterol). Each variety of millets is rich in unique minerals and importantly rich in soluble fiber which is must for digestive system functions and good gut cleansing.

If you try these KANCHIPURAM MILLET IDLI, please don't forget to rate and comment your feedback at the bottom of the post. Also if you have any questions do feel free to leave a comment for the same. I will try to answer it ASAP. Make sure to follow me on Instagram for day to day menu ideas , instant recipes, healthy bakes and garden tips! Follow me on YouTube for clear video tutorials especially on baking recipes with Recipe Cards or Pinterest for healthy snack ideas and Facebook for recipe updates!

Jump To

HOW TO MAKE MILLET FLOUR

MILLET KANCHIPURAM IDLI BATTER USING FLOUR

HOW TO MAKE MILLET KANCHIPURAM IDLI BATTER

HOW TO GRIND URAD DAL

HOW TO STEAM IDLIS

COMPLETE VIDEO RECIPE

PRINTABLE RECIPE

RELATED RECIPE LINKS

How to make Raw Millet Flour

• Clean the millet, soak for 15 minutes, drain the soaked water, rinse thrice and soak millets for minimum 2hrs or maximum 6-8 hours as you wish.
• Later drain the excess water, pat dry over cloth for 30-40 minutes (Pic 1).
• Millet powder nice when there is moisture in it, so with little moisture grind the millets (Pic 2) and 1 cup millet yields little less than 2 cups of flour.
• Do grind them in batches if the quantity is high.
• Sieve the flour immediately after grinding it (Pic 3).
• The leftover coarse millet after sieve can be included it in the next batch of grinding.
• Do use small hole sieve to get fine millet flour.

• Once done with grinding millet flour (Pic 4), you can dry under shade for 2-4hours.
• Later roast them in batches in low-medium flame until moisture from flour goes off.
• Keep working otherwise flour gets burned.
• You can dry roast the next day too to confirm the flour gets dried well.
• The well dried flour stays good in room temperature for 1 month.
• You can use it where ever the recipe calls for millet flour or otherwise refrigerate for longer shelf life.
• Due to moisture in the raw ground flour molds form so I won’t recommend storing raw flour in the fridge for a longer time but wanted to clear the followers queries.

How to make batter using Millet Flour

• if you have Instant Millet Flour or homemade millet flour at home do follow below steps.
• For 3 cups millet flour take 1cup urad dal and 1tsp methi seeds.
• Soak urad dal for minimum 2hours grind to fluffy smooth butter like texture.
• Separately soak methi seeds and grind in Mixie/ food processor to fine paste.
• Mix flour with ground stuff, millet or 1/3 cup rice rava (for 3 cups flour) , 2tsp salt and necessary water.

How to Make Millet Kanchipuram Idli Batter

• Measure and take millet in a wide bowl (Pic 1).
• Clean the millet (for removing stoned refer HERE), soak for 15 minutes, drain the soaked water, rinse thrice and soak again with fresh water for minimum 2hrs or maximum 6-8 hours (Pic 2).

• Later add the soaked millets along with its water(reserve some) and grind it to smooth paste (Pic 4) in food mixie.
• If not using 1/4 cup rice rava/millet rava do take 1.25cups millet and grind to coarse batter.
• Pour the ground batter in a wide bowl (Pic 5).
• Add millet rava/rice rava to the ground batter (Pic 6) if you choose, keep aside.

How to grind Urad Dal

• Making right consistency urad batter is the key for fluffy idlis.
• I am going to make it a separate post in classic Idli Dosa Batter (soon) till then sharing some tips here.
• Soak urad dal for 2 hours while millet is half way thru its soaking you can start soaking dal.
• Later grind dal in mixie or grinder (quantity of dal varies in these two methods).
• Grind the dal to smooth butter like smooth texture (pic 7) and while grinding don’t heat the dal batter.
• I grind a big batch of urad batter and use it in different idli dosa batter varieties (Pic 7).
• Once done add to prepared millet+rava mixture or coarse millet mixture (Pic 8).
• Adjust water and consistency should be like shown in Picture 9 with rava in it.
• Thin the batter if you add rava so that it absorbs water during fermentation process.
• Also add salt before fermentation.
• Wipe the sides of the bowl with water, close it tightly and place in warm temperature to ferment.
• 8hrs later the batter ferments well like shown in Pic 10.
• If not do allow up to 12hrs to ferment.

Tempering Millet Kanchipuram Idli Batter

• Now the batter is ready chop or grate ginger, curry leaves and make the tempering ingredients ready.
• Heat oil/ghee in a wide pan, splutter cumin seeds, peppercorns , curry leaves and grated ginger.
• When cumin seeds changes color do remove from the pan.
• In the same pan roast cashews as well.

• Add those sautéed mixture to the fermented batter (Pic 2).
• Mix them gently and don’t deflate the batter by mixing vigorously.
• Apply melted butter/oil/ghee to stainless steel cups you are using to steam.
• Pour 2/3cup of batter in each cup.
• Arrange them on a steamer plate (pic 1 below) and steam over boiling water (covered) from 12-15minutes or until toothpick inserted at center comes out clean.

Millet Kanchipuram Idli Ingredients

Whole Grain Foxtail Millet – 1 Cup (Refer variations to use instant millet flour)
Muzhu Ulunthu / Whole Urad Dal/ Urid Gota – 1/2 Cup + 2 Tbsp or Ground Thick Batter – 1.25 Cup (refer notes)
OR
Use Urad Dal – 3/4 Cup For Mixie/Mixer
Idli Rava / Millet Rava – 1/4 Cup
Fenugreek – 1/4tsp
Salt – As Needed
Stainless Steel cups greased with melted butter / Banana Leaves / Dhonai leaves
For Tempering
Cumin – 1tsp
Pepper – 1/2tsp
Grated Ginger – 1tsp (Optional)
Chopped Curry Leaves – Few
Cashew Nuts – Few
Oil or Ghee – For tempering

How to Steam in Instant Pot

• Today I am sharing how to steam in Instant pot.
• Add 1.25 cups of water to the Instant Pot inner pot.
• Boil the water by using saute mode high for 5-7 minutes.
• Once water is boiling, gently place the batter placed cups (pic 1) inside the inner pot (Pic 2).

• Close the lid by pressing the steam release button like shown in Pic 3.
• Also make sure the button is pressed down (for steam mode, Pic 4) to steam them.
• Now set pressure cook mode high (pic 5) and in steam mode timer wont work so keep a manual timer for 12-15 minutes (according to the size of the cups you use).
• Check the doneness by inserting toothpick in the center of the idlis.
• If its comes out clean then its done otherwise do steam couple more minutes.

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RELATED RECIPE LINKS

• MILLET FLOUR RECIPES
• WHOLE GRAIN MILLET IDLI DOSA RECIPES
• MILLETS IN BAKING
• MILLET RICE VARIETIES
• ALL MILLET RECIPES
• CHUTNEY RECIPES
• VEG KUZHAMBU RECIPES
• PODI / DRY CHUTNEY POWDER

Tips

• Right consistency urad batter is the key for any idli recipe so grind to very smooth and fine fluffy texture.
• It takes almost 1hour to grind in wet grinder.
• Make the millet batter coarse/ grainy texture.
• Grind the urad dal batter to smooth buttery texture.
• Instead of white urad dal do try with black urad gotta ( dal with skins).
• Allow to ferment and then add tempering.
• While mixing the tempering with batter, don’t deflate the fermented batter, gently mix it.
• If it’s not fluffy do allow the batter to rise again in room temperature for 30 minutes.