1. Finely chop Onions, peel and grate the carrots, grate the ginger, finely chop the chillies.
2. Fry the Peanuts or Cashew nuts whichever you are using in ghee and keep aside.
3. In a pan, take some oil, Add mustard seeds, cumin seeds and chana dal, wait for the mustard seeds to crackle.
4. Add the grated ginger, finely chopped chillies and curry leaves, once they are fried.
5. Add the grated coconut and the grated carrot, salt, turmeric, asafetida, red chilly powder and just stir-fry once, so that all the masala mixes well.
6. The carrot should not be cooked, it should be crunchy.
7. Incase you are adding green peas, after frying the green chillies and ginger, add the peas and fry till you see the peas slightly changing its color.
8. Add the remaining things as mentioned above.
9. Add this masala into the idli batter, also add the fried cashew nuts or peanuts that you are using and mix well.
10. Add coriander leaves and mix well.
11. Check for salt; if you feel it`s less add at this point.
12. Now coat the idli moulds with oil, pour the batter into the Idli moulds and steam cook.
13. Serve hot with chutney, sambhar or molagapodi. Try out the masala idli.

Note:

1. You can make this with the freshly fermented Idli batter or with yesterdays idli batter.
2. You can make Idlis on the first day and the next day you can make Masala idli for breakfast.
3. This is one dish no one would complain about.
4. People who don`t like idlis may actually love this spicy idli.
5. Always make the masala to be mixed with the batter, just before you pour into the idli mould else the idli wont taste so good.
6. Don`t mix the masala in the morning and make the idlis in the evening