South Indian
Idli Podi (Gunpowder)
Idli Podi (Gunpowder) is South Indian home cooking, eaten at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. On the plate it is the condiment. Below is what usually sits beside it, what it does and does not contain, and what else to cook once you have made it.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup urad dal
- 1/4 cup chana dal
- 8 dried red chilies
- 2 tbsp sesame seeds
- 1 sprig curry leaves
- 2 tbsp sesame oil
- 3/4 tsp salt
How to cook it
- Dry roast the urad dal in a pan over low heat, stirring constantly, until golden and fragrant, then set aside to cool.
- Dry roast the chana dal the same way until golden, then roast the dried red chilies and curry leaves briefly until crisp.
- Toast the sesame seeds separately in the same pan until fragrant and just starting to pop.
- Cool everything completely, then grind with the salt into a coarse, textured powder.
- Store in an airtight jar and mix a spoonful with the sesame oil just before serving alongside idli or rice.
Serve it with
A South Indian dinner is a plate rather than a single dish. These are the courses that normally sit beside Idli Podi (Gunpowder), read from the same composition Dinejot builds a real meal from.
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The dish at the centre
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What it is eaten with
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Something cool and fresh
A course labelled with another kitchen's name comes from a cuisine in the same family, which is where this plate usually borrows it from.
Safe at your table
Dinejot tracks ten allergens and tags every one of them by hand, so the absences below are as deliberate as the presences. Idli Podi (Gunpowder) carries sesame. It is free of the remaining 9 allergens on that list.
| Allergen | In this dish | Cook this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Peanuts | No | |
| Tree nuts | No | |
| Dairy | No | |
| Gluten | No | |
| Shellfish | No | |
| Eggs | No | |
| Soy | No | |
| Fish | No | |
| Sesame | Yes | Coconut Chutney |
| Coconut | No |
These tags are set by a person rather than inferred from an ingredient list, and they describe the recipe as written here. Read the labels on whatever you actually buy.
What it brings to the plate
Bands, not numbers. Dinejot does not weigh anybody's food, so it says light, moderate or hearty and stops there. This dish was read and set by hand.
- Calorie band
- Light
- Protein
- Low
- Food groups it covers
- Pulses and Nuts and seeds
- How this was set
- Hand audited
When to cook it
Idli Podi (Gunpowder) takes about 20 minutes from a cold stove to the table, and the cooking itself is easy going. It is eaten at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Nothing in the calendar rules it out, so it is a year round dish.
Watch someone make it
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More to cook
Cooked from the same things
Other dishes built on urad dal and sesame.
From the same kitchens
More cooking from South India.
Does the same job on the plate
Swap any of these in when you want a meal the same shape.
Cook this with your whole family
Dinejot plans breakfast, lunch and dinner as whole plates, built around the cooking you call home and filtered for the allergies at your table.
Meal suggestions support your goals. They are not medical advice. Please ask your doctor about your family's health needs.