Adai is a traditional food for the South Indians. It is prepared from the combination of cereals and pulses. It is a unfermented food. Legumes provide the protein supplement to the diet which primarily consists of carbohydrates. The complementary nutritive value of cereals and pulses suggest that the most practical means of eradicating the widespread protein calorie malnutrition in several areas of the world is to increase the supply of cereal pulse mixtures for human diets.

Method

Preparation of the samples

Cleaning:  The parboiled rice, raw rice, black gram dhal, red gram dhal, green gram dhal and bengal gram dhal were purchased from the local market, cleaned to remove immature, weeviled, broken and damaged grains, dried for two to three hours in sun, cooled and stored in the air tight containers till they were used.

Grinding of cereal and pulses   : The cereals and pulses were ground in a mixie separately and sieved in BS 22 sieve. The ground flours were dried separately in a cabinet drier at 80 for two hr, cooled and used for instant adai mix preparation.

Mixing of ingredients :  The ground cereals and pulses were mixed in the following proportions

Batter preparation :  To 100 g of instant adai mix, 200 ml of water was added and mixed well. The prepared batter was allowed to stand for 15 minutes at room temperature before preparing adai.

Preparation of adai : The prepared batter was poured on the pre-heated tawa (Shallow fat frying pan) and spread uniformly with a ladder (thickness of 5 mm and diameter of 12 cm). The adai was cooked in the heated tawa by sprinkling oil on the surface for 2-3 ml. The prepared adai was light brown in colour. Adai batter can also be prepared either with water and curd or water and tomato juice in the ratio of 1:1. The prepared adai was organoleptically evaluated.