Soft, spongy cakes of fermented rice and lentil batter, steamed in moulds and eaten with sambar and chutney.
What makes it idli
Parboiled rice and whole urad dal, soaked and ground separately, then mixed.
Fermented overnight until it rises and smells gently sour.
Steamed in round moulds, never fried.
Sambar and coconut chutney, or gunpowder — a dry chutney powder — with oil.
Where it comes from
Early Kannada and Tamil writing mentions a dish called iddalige or iddali, though it may not have been fermented as idli is now. Some food historians have suggested the technique of fermenting and steaming came from what's now Indonesia; others see it as grown at home. Nobody knows for sure.
Today it's the most ordinary breakfast in the south — light, easy to digest, and given to children and the ill as readily as to anyone.
How it varies
Rava idli
Semolina instead of rice, raised with yoghurt — a Bengaluru invention, often credited to a restaurant there during wartime rice shortages.
Kanchipuram idli
A temple version with black pepper, cumin, ginger and ghee, steamed in a larger mould.