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Natural food colours can do unimaginable wonders with your recipes if you know how to use them. Recently a food content creator named Rohini Deepthi Natti shared a recipe for idlis themed around kathakali dancers to celebrate the festival of Onam. Natti uses natural food colours for her recipe and uses some strategic patterns to ace the design.
“Today was a fun creative morning with idlis. No idlis were harmed or wasted. All had a cozy pool time in sambar before we ‘lapak lapak’d,” she wrote on Instagram. Natti also broke down how she used coloured foods to get the look right on her idlis. She used coriander purée, beetroot purée, turmeric powder, and unsweetened cocoa powder in idli batter along with sunflower seeds coated with white idli batter and mustard seeds as eyeballs. She also used sunflower seed dipped in green batter to give an embossed effect.
Natti also shared a few hacks to use beetroot batter for semi-solid batters. “Radish carved in the shape of lips and layered with beetroot batter. Beetroot has a very strong pigment. This method keeps it from blending into the green face and keeps the shape more defined. Initially thought of using tomato but skipped the idea. Didn’t have red capsicum either,” she wrote.
“The flower PUNCHES I used are cake fondant cutters. Punched carrot and radish slices using them. Link in my highlights. The tiny carrot, I used a straw to punch. Rest I used a knife to cut the shapes,” Natti said about the small detailing which was also made with natural produce.
“I used CHEF Tweezers to place things on the batter. Very helpful while placing the seeds. This art has sesame, sunflower, kalonji, mustard and pumpkin seeds,” she added. A few days ago Natti shared inspiration for flipped idli art and shared how she used pumpkin seeds to set the pattern. Natti also made a cute minion-inspired, boatrace-themed dish for Onam where she used boiled labia, rajma, ghee and mustard eyes.
