1. Soak the rice and urad dal in water for at least 2 hours
2. Rinse and drain the water and grind the rice and urad dal in a grinder to make a thick batter.
3. The batter should not be very smooth.
4. Add salt and keep the ground idli batter aside for 12 hours for the batter to ferment.
5. The next day, heat ghee in a pan, add broken cashews and fry till it turns golden in colour.
6. Add this to the idli batter and mix well
7. Grind pepper and cumin seeds in a mixer and keep aside.
8. Pour gingelly oil in a pan and add mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds sputter, add the cumin-pepper powder and ginger powder and fry for a 10 seconds.
9. Add this mixture to the batter and stir well.
10. Now the kanchipuram idli batter is ready.
11. Pour the idli batter on the idli plates and cook in a pressure cooker.
12. Serve with milagai podi (gun powder), chutneys and sambar.
13. Cooking takes more time than normal idli.
14. We can also pour out 4 laddles of this batter on to a deep plate and steam it in a pressure cooker or idli cooker for about 20-30 min.
15. Remove from the stove and cut into small squares and serve.

Recipe & image courtesy: www.subbuskitchen.com