Chomai is an authentic Sankethi dish which is made using rice flour. Its a very long process. The rice flour has to be made in a very specific way. The rice is washed few times and dried, then is taken to the rice mill to be grinded to a fine flour. Then this flour is cooked in water and is made into a dough. This dough is then steamed in a cooker and then it is pressed though Chomai machine. It takes a long time but today I am showing a shortcut way to do this Chomai with fine semolina and it tastes the same anyway. Unfortunately practice makes a man perfect and it needs lot of practice to make this. Very experienced people also fail to get the right texture if it is not done properly. It took me a while to get it right, but again when I tried few days ago when some guests had come, it dint come that well even though I used the exact same recipe. I always have dragon at home as a back up.
In this recipe I have used mainly semolina but one of my friends mom uses 3:1 ratio of semolina and plain flour and she said that it came out well, I haven't tried it yet.
The best method is still the old school using washed rice flour (Tolada akki hittu).
Ingredients for the vermicelli
1. 4 cups of fine semolina
2. 5 cups of Water
3. Salt
4. 1to 2 tablespoon of olive Oil
Ingredients for the flavour
Lemon flavour
1. Lemon juice
2. Salt
3. Green chillies
4. Mustard seeds
5. Oil
6. Coriander leaves
7. Curry leaves
8. Turmeric
Method for the lemon flavour
1. Season oil with mustard seeds, chilli and curry leaves.
2. Then add salt, turmeric and lemon juice
3. Garnish with coriander
Tamarind Flavour
1. Lemon size tamarind juice
2. Jaggery (Palm sugar)
3. Red chillies
4. Oil
5. Salt
6. Coriander leaves
7. Mustard seeds
8. Curry leaves
9. Peanuts
Method for Tamarind flavour
1. Mix tamarin juice, jiggery, salt and chillies, boil them together until it thickens
2. Season oil with peanuts, mustard seeds and curry leaves and mix it to the above paste
3. Garnish with coriander leaves
Method for the vermicelli
1. Mix water, semolina, salt and oil together and rest it overnight.
2. Batter will be elastic and will be of thick consistency as shown.
3. Grease the idly stand with oil and steam them like idly for 30 minutes.
4. Once steamed, the idly will look like this.
5. This is Chomai presser or machine.
6. Now take the Idlys out immediately and put them in the presser hot and start pressing.
8. You can make sweet flavour too by just mixing this with sugar and desicated coconut. Not many people like it sweet but I love it.
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