Siddu is a himachali food which is a steamed preparation like Idli of south, dhokla of west and momos of east India. Variation in fillings of vegetables and pulses of our choice adds to its adaptability all over the country. The choice of fillings can be to our taste and nutritional values.

Ingredients

Wheat flour                  —  1 cup

Dry Yeast                       —  1/2 tsp

Salt                                —  1/2 tsp

Ghee                             —  2 tbsp

Traditional Siddu filling

Walnuts                               — 1 tbsp

Melon seeds                        — 1 tsp

Dry roasted Poppy seeds     — 1 tsp

Dry roasted coriander     }     – 1 tsp

and cumin seeds             }

Red chilli powder                 — 1/2  tsp

Salt                                       — to taste

Your choice filling

Boiled kidney beans( Rajma)}       – 2 tbsp

with salt                        }

Garam masala                             — 1/2 tsp

Finely chopped coriander leaves – 1 tbsp

Dry roasted coriander and }          –1 tbsp

Cumin seeds                        }

Red chilli powder                           — 1/2  tsp

Salt                                                 — to taste

Note: Your choice filling  is a variation of vegetables and pulses of your choice

Preparation time        : 30 min

Cooking time               : 20 min

Makes                           : 2

Procedure

Video

 

Text Procedure

Step 1

Preparation of dough

Take 1 cup of wheat flour in a bowl. Add 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp dry yeast. Mix with lukewarm water to make soft ugh. The dough should not be sticky.

Step 2

Cover the dough with wet muslin cloth and close the bowl with a lid. Keep it aside for  1 hour. After 1 hour , the dough will be soft and would have bloated to almost double the original size.

Step 3

Traditional filling

To make Siddu the traditional himachali way, the filling will be made as follows. Take a mixie jar and add 1 tsp of walnut, 1 tsp of melon seeds, 1 tsp of dry roasted poppy seeds soaked in hot water for 1/2 hour, Garam masala 1/2 tsp,  1 tsp of dry roasted coriander ( dhaniya) seeds and cumin seeds, 1/2 tsp chilli powder and 1/2 tsp of salt. Grind all the ingredients to form the filling.

Step 4

Filling of choice

In order to bring some variety, we can bring some variations by making filling of our choice by choosing vegetables and pulses as per our preferences. In this post we tried kidney beans (Rajma) as the filling.

Take cooked and mashed kidney beans with salt  2 tbsp in a mixie cup. Add 1 tbsp finely chopped coriander leaves, dry roasted coriander and cumin seeds 1 tsp, garam masala 1/2 tsp and chilli powder 1/2 tsp and salt to taste. Grind the ingredients and use it as filling.

Step 5

Now take the dough that was prepared and kept aside for at least 1 hour. Divide the dough and by rolling with hands make it into two balls. Now flatten the dough by pressing it with hand. You can apply some ghee on to your hands for this process. Once the dough has been flattened, keep the filling and fold the dough to cover the filling completely. We use one for traditional filling and the other for filling of our choice. Once the filling is completely covered with the dough, again rotate between the two hands to make bun shape. Now it is ready for steaming.

 

Step 6

The traditional Siddu can be steamed straight away. But in our variation method, we have changed the filling and also we slightly roast the dough in a pan before steaming.

Step 7

Keep both the bun shaped dough with filling in a steamer, cover with muslin cloth and steam for 20 minutes. At the end of 20 minutes, switch off and open the lid.  Siddu is cooked and it is very soft and spongy to touch. It can be transferred to a plate and served with ghee. You will enjoy its delicious taste.