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.

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.

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.

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.