Thank you so much @Laks09 and @Thoughtful for sharing your wisdom and tips! @Laks09 Until you mentioned it, it never crossed my mind that the second batch of (refrigerated) batter is at a colder temp than the first of even that temp difference was making a difference. Will definitely try bringing it back to room temp and see if that helps. Okay dumb question here but if steel ladle is not to be used how do you add the salt and mix it into the batter? Do you use a ceramic or wooden one? Please clarify. @Thoughtful thanks for explaining the science behind it. Till now I was merely doing one brisk round of mixing at the start of fermentation process/add salt step and then merely dipping in ladle to load up my moulds. I just assumed once the urad and rice batters are mixed they stay mixed. I will try stirring well in between loading the moulds as well. But one doubt I have is that the more I stir the more the trapped air/leavening is lost - is this not the case with you? Or Maybe it’s my steel ladle which I just learnt is a possible culprit in all this - I just don’t know.
Hey Anika, In my experience all you make and freeze will just stay there till you return. Just make enough for a week or so, place in fridge and go. Guys are not into all this. They prefer fresh food from a restaurant to melting and thawing and all that jazz. In my case my h happily defaults to bachelor state and eats out no complaints. All food in fridge remains there till I return and throw. Just my 2 cents.
Exactly !! Mine just makes his own favourites when I'm not around! And friends wives will invite on weekends ...
Otherday she took out the dough which was re-refrigerated and was leaving it to attain room temp. While additional items kept previous night, the dough container was pushed deep at rear of storage space. So it got almost frozen. Since I was famished & in great hurry to have bf at once. When she was just away for a while, I shifted the dough container into a pan of boiling water. Dough thawed out but when I tried to spread it over hot thava, it didn’t spread evenly to a disc. With lumps of dough, no dosa could be made. Icooked the dough!?
I think you probably insufficiently thawed the dough. You should have warmed up the water, removed from gas and placed the vessel in it for 30 mins or so. Then checked by stirring to ensure it thawed completely. In general when placed in a pan of hot water the melt is not instantaneous. It proceeds from outside to inside- and the process takes time. Water has a high heat capacity etc etc. So takes time.
Dear OP, Have a fun vacation to home country!! If it is for a week, you are cooking. I would leave it in regular fridge. If you planning to keep some extras, portion them to 1 serving and freeze, once thawed can't be re-freezed is the thumb rule. You can use freezer friendly ziplocks(easily available on Amazon) or glass containers and put a date on which it is prepared, so your husband use them away first before reaching out to top ones. He can put them in regular fridge the night before and use it for lunch the next day. Hope this helps
Sorry for the late reply @1Sandhya. Regarding your question on whether more trapped air will be lost when stirring, I tend to agree with you ( makes sense ). There will be air loss, however, it is a cost we might have to pay to even out the ural daal and get similar idlis from the entire batter.
I used to do similar mistake with dosas. I used to immediately make dosas after taking the batter out from fridge. The batter used to always get stuck to the ladle and I was not able to make round dosas. I dint realise the mistake until I visited India and my mom said that the batter has to come to room temperature before making dosas
Sailed in the same boat sometime back. Another observation: Ladle should not go deep to the bottom to stir. The depth for stirring with ladle is so chosen to the quantity of dough required at a time.