Today I am going to give you the 6 homemade rice noodles or sevai recipes. These Indian rice noodles are a cousin of idiyappam or nool puttu.
The 2 minute noodles that won the heart of all children and teens of India is finally out of the shop shelves. It did go away taking along a piece of health of so many.
From a very long time, such store bought foods are prohibited in our household. In fact many parents of previous generation did not like these instant magic foods, the strong flavor and salty taste of it. But the quick cooking and extra masala taste of instant noodles took over the pace, and started to emerge in India rapidly.
All this because, we forgot our own Indian traditional foods, which are still proving to be the best nutritious foods in the world.
Most South Indian cuisines are steamed food delicacies, namely, idly, idiyappam, puttu, sevai or indian rice noodles, kozhukkattai or dumplings or momos, ela adai, paruppu usili. These foods ensure a double cooking, and is suitable for all ages, before getting teeth and after losing them too
Though there are prevailing noodles in the market, let us start getting used to our authentic foods, to make a healthy future for our next generation. You can also read how you can give junk foods to your kid but in a healthy way.
The 6 homemade healthy rice noodles mentioned in this article can be given to babies of 8 months and above by mashing with hands. You can remove the tadka or any choking hazard in the sevai though. For toddlers and kids, this is one of the healthiest breakfast or evening snack options.
The difference between idiyappam and sevai is that idiyappam is steamed after getting the shape of noodles. In sevai, the flour mix is steamed first and then made as noodles.
You do get instant rice noodles in shops, again for which we do not know how good it is and they may contain some preservatives too. So let's see how to make them at home in the original way.
What you need is a sevai machine, or the hand press mould, with the sev attachment.
There are 2 different methods to make the base steamed dough. They are batter and dough methods.
Batter method:Soak both the rice together in water overnight for 3 to 5 hours. Grind them to a thin batter in mixer or wet grinder. Add salt and mix well. Keep this mixture rest for half an hour.
Steam this batter in idly moulds as we do for idly. This will cook faster than regular idlis. These idlis are harder than our regular idlis.
Scoop out the idlies. Meanwhile keep the presser ready. Fill the idlis in the presser and make them into noodles. It has to be done immediately after scooping out the idlis, since the hard idlis are easier to press when they are hot. Keep them in a large plate to let it cool and dry.
The hand presser will not be of much help in this method, since the idlis are considerably harder to handle.
Keep the next plate of filled idly mould only after pressing the first batch and so on.
Dough method:Dry roast the rice flour in a pan until the flour is just hot. Remove and keep.
Take 2 cups of water in a vessel and add a pinch of salt, bring it to boil. Once when it is boiling, add in the rice flour and mix well. It will not tend to lump, if you stir in continuously for 5 minutes. When it takes the form of dough, switch off and keep it covered with a lid.
After 10 minutes, work on the dough with hands to make it smooth. Apply oil in your hands for doing this. Make small balls out of this dough and keep them ready.
In a large vessel keep enough water and bring to a boil. When it boils, add all the dough balls one by one and cover the vessel with a plate. Keep the flame in simmer. The dough balls will get cooked in the hot water and start to float once they are cooked. Take out the floating balls and fill them in the presser. Make the noodles as in the above method.
6 Rice noodles recipes for your baby and toddler:
Now that the plain noodles is ready, we can make varieties of seasoning for this noodles. Let me list out the popular sevai flavors from the olden days.
Divide the noodles as per your wish for the below seasonings.
#1. Coconut sevai:- Scraped coconut - 1 cup
- Mustard seeds - ½ teaspoon
- Red Chilli - 1
- Split urad dal - ¼ teaspoon
- Hing - a pinch
- Oil - 1 to 2 teaspoons
- Curry leaves - to garnish
- Cooked rice noodles - 1 cup
The seasoning is same as that of coconut rice.
Heat oil and splutter mustard seeds. Add the dal, hing, red chilli and curry leaves. Add scraped coconut and roast for a minute or two. Add this to the noodles and mix well.
Check the salt and add at this stage, because there is some salt already in the noodles.
#2. Lemon sevai:- Lemon juice - 1 tablespoon
- Mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon
- Chana dal - ½ teaspoon
- Green chilli - 1
- Chopped ginger - ¼ teaspoon
- Turmeric powder - a pinch
- Oil - as required
- Curry leaves
- Cooked rice noodles - 1 cup
Season the same as in lemon rice recipe. Heat oil and make tadka of the dals, mustard seeds and other ingredients except lemon juice.
Add tadka to the noodles and squeeze lemon juice on top. Mix well and adjust the salt.
#3. Samba sevai- Jeera or cumin seeds - 1 teaspoon
- Pepper pods - 1 teaspoon
- Ghee - 1 to 2 teaspoons
- Red chilli - 1
- Mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon
- Curry leaves - to garnish
- Cooked rice noodles - 1 cup
The recipe preparation is same as samba rice.
Grind together jeera and pepper to a coarse powder.
In a kadai, heat ghee. Add mustard and red chilli. Add this powder and roast for a minute. Add this to the sevai and mix well.
Adjust the salt and garnish with curry leaves.
#4. Tamarind sevai or puli sevai:- Tamarind - a ball size soaked in water and juice extracted
- Peanuts - 1 teaspoon
- Jaggery - 1/2 teasoon (optional)
- Mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon
- Chana dal - 1 tablespoon
- Gram dal - 1 teasoon
- Red chilly - 1
- Hing - 1 pinch
- Turmeric powder - 1 pinch
- Curry leaves - a few for tadka
- Oil - 1 to 2 tablespoons
- Cooked rice noodles - 1 cup
Heat oil and add mustard seeds, dals and red chilly. Once the dals turn brown, add the curry leaves and tamarind paste or juice. Sautee for a few seconds until the rawness of tamarind is gone.
Add jaggery, peanuts and salt. Add in the sevai after a few minutes and coat well.
You can also make tamarind sevai with puliogare powder or puliogare paste. You just need to mix in noodles and adjust the salt.
#5. Curd sevai- Curd - 1/2 cup
- Green chilly - 1 chopped
- Ginger - 1/ teaspoon chopped
- Hing - 1 pinch
- Urad dal - 1/2 teaspoon
- Mustard seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
- Curry leaves - a few
- Oil - 1 tablespoon
- Cooked rice noodles - 1 cup
Add curd to the noodles. Make a tadka of mustard, urad dal, hing, chopped green chillies and ginger. Add curry leaves and mix well.
Add the tadka to the noodles mixed with curd. Curd sevai is ready. You can also check out the curd rice recipe for toddlers.
#6. Sugar sevai- Ghee - 2 teaspoons
- Sugar - 1 teaspoon
- Cooked rice noodles - 1 cup
Simply add ghee and sugar to the rice noodles and mix well. You can also add some coconut milk flavored with cardamom if you wish.
These were the types of homemade rice noodles or sevai recipes for your toddler. You can alternatively make any type of seasoning for sevai recipes.
Like vegetable pulao, cook all the veggies, add in the masalas, and make like a curry. Mix noodles to this curry to prepare a vegetable rice noodles and serve with raita.
Do you make rice noodles or sevai at home? Is your little one fond of it? Or he still likes the instant one from the market? Is there any other flavor in which you make sevai at home? Do share with me in comments please.
