Brown Rice Uppu urundai

This is an ideal evening snack and it is not deep-fried. It can be had by itself but I love having these with coconut chutney. My MIL makes this an evening snack very often. Whenever she grinds the batter for idlis and dosas, she takes some of the rice batter and makes uppu urundai out of the batter. I find this method very easy. Here, I have used brown rice instead of regular rice.

INGREDIENTS:
Brown rice, 1 cup.
Mustard seeds. ¼ teaspoon.
Red chilies, 2.
Channa dhal, 1 tablespoon.
Broken cashews, 1 tablespoon.
Salt as per taste.
Chopped cilantro, ¼ cup.
Curry leaves, 1 sprig.

PREPARATION:
Wash the rice and soak it for 3-4 hours. Grind the rice along with some salt until its smooth. I used a blender for grinding. Add one more cup of water to this batter. Heat a pan with some oil. When the oil is hot enough, add the mustard seeds and let it splutter. Then add the broken red chilies, channa dhal, cashews and fry for a few seconds until everything is brown. Then add the chopped cilantro and curry leaves and the ground rice batter and mix well. Keep mixing under medium flame until the batter starts to thicken and forms into a large dough. It should be firm enough to make small balls out of it. To test the dough, take a pinch of the dough and roll it. The ball will be formed very easily if the consistency is right. Make similar balls from the dough. I have formed small bite-sized balls, so they can easily had with a fork. Then steam the balls for 15 minutes. I used an idli cooker to steam them by arranging them on the idli plates and then steaming them. Serve them with coconut chutney or tomato chutney.