Kotte Kadubu
Idli batter steamed inside little boxes pinned from jackfruit leaves, which turn the whole thing faintly resinous and are most of the point.
Drafted — not yet cooked in our kitchen
- Hands on
- 19 min
- Total
- 1 hr 4 min
- Serves
- 4
- Difficulty
- medium
Four leaves pinned into a box, batter poured in, twenty minutes of steam. The folding is the only fiddly part, and it gets quick by the third one.
Step by step, with timers and flame levels. Your screen stays awake.
Ingredients
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Method
Wipe the leaves with a damp cloth and snip off the stalks. Don't wash and soak them — a wet leaf steams limp and tears when you unwrap it.
Look for: Clean, dry, firm and glossy. Set aside any that have gone yellow or feel papery — those split the moment you fold them.
4–5 min
Take four leaves and overlap them into a shallow box, shiny side inward, pinning the corners with short pieces of broom stick or with toothpicks. Push the pin through both leaves and out again, the way a staple goes, so it holds under steam.
Look for: The cup should hold water for a slow count of ten without weeping at the corners. Overlap the leaves more generously than looks necessary — batter finds every gap there is.
10–15 min
Bring the batter to room temperature and taste it for salt before adding any. It wants to be idli-thick — if it has gone thin and sour, it will not climb the sides of the cup and you will get a dense flat block.
Look for: Thick enough to mound on a spoon and drop off in one piece, and lively — you should see small bubbles when you stir it down.
20–30 min · bowl
Brush the inside of each leaf box lightly with coconut oil and fill it two-thirds. Leave the rest of the space; the batter rises, and a box filled to the brim overflows and glues itself to its neighbours.
Look for: Batter sitting level at about two-thirds, no leaks at the corners after a minute standing.
4–5 min
Stand the boxes in a steamer, not touching, and steam covered on a medium flame. Add water to the steamer before you start rather than topping it up halfway, which drops the temperature.
Look for: A skewer through the middle comes out clean and the kadubu has domed and pulled slightly in from the leaf at the edges. The leaves will have gone from bright green to olive.
20–25 min · medium heat · idli steamer
Take them out and leave them alone for five minutes before you open anything.
Look for: The leaves peel away cleanly with the pins pulled out. Straight from the steamer they stick, tear, and take the surface of the kadubu with them.
5–6 min
Serve hot with coconut chutney, a spoon of ghee, or a thin curry. Cut it in the leaf and eat it out of the leaf — that is how it is served on the coast, and the smell is still coming off it.
Look for: Soft and open right through, with the faint resinous smell of the leaf on the surface.
1–2 min
About this dish
Kotte is the leaf box; kadubu is the steamed thing inside it. It belongs to the Karnataka coast and the Malnad, where a jackfruit tree in the yard makes the wrapper free and the idli mould unnecessary. Without the leaves this becomes an idli in a different shape, which is worth being honest about. Small greased steel cups work and the recipe is otherwise unchanged — you simply lose the one thing the dish is named for.