Instant Pot Idli

I've amended my recipe now that I've made this successfully a few times.  The water and dry ingredient amounts and cook times seem reliable now.  I use more water than the recipes I've seen that involve a wet grinder, but it works.  I don't have a wet grinder, and when I tried to make a thick paste in my Vitamix, the blender always overheated and the fermentation never really came out right.  The amounts noted below are the amounts I always use now.

Ingredients
1/2 cup urad dal (the whitish colored skinned and split urad dal, not the whole black kind)
1 cup idli rice (parboiled short grain rice that says "idli" or "idly" on the bag)
1/2 tsp methi (fenugreek) seeds
1/2 tsp non-iodized salt (I use fine sea salt)
cold water

Directions

1) Put urad dal and methi seeds in one bowl and cover with water.  Put idli rice in another bowl and cover with water.  Let soak at least 6 hours.

2) Rinse urad dal and methi seeds thoroughly.  Add 1/2 cup cold water to a high speed blender and top with urad dal and methi seeds.  Blend into a fine paste. Put dal paste into a bowl.

3) Rinse idli rice thoroughly.  Add 1.5 cups cold water to same high speed blender and top with the idli rice.  Blend.  It will be a lot thinner than the dal paste.  Don't worry about that.  Add to the same bowl as the dal and combine thoroughly.  It should now be about the thickness of a smoothie.

4) Preheat oven to 180 degrees Fahrenheit (this is important because it's usually too cold in my house to ferment things at room temperature).  When oven is preheated, turn it off.  Cover bowl of batter with an oven-safe plate and put it in the warm, off oven with only the oven light on and leave it to ferment over night.

5) Check on the batter the next day.  It won't be ready yet, but that's okay.  Heat the oven back up to 180, turn it off, cover the bowl and put it back in the off oven, and turn the oven light back on.  I end up leaving mine in the oven for about 18 hours total.  Basically I leave it until I'm ready to make dinner.  By then it's foamed up into nearly twice its previous size and smells like idli.  Now add 1/2 tsp of salt and stir it in.     

6) Put 1.5 cups water into Instant Pot and set to "saute" until you can see steam coming off the water.  While waiting for the water to heat (it happens quickly), lightly oil idli molds (I spray them lightly with Pam) and add batter.  I fill the molds so they are each about two-thirds to three-quarters full.

7) Place stack of idli molds into Instant Pot.  I only use four out of the five of my idli mold trays because when I stacked all five, the idli on the top layer clogged up the vent on my Instant Pot.  I just don't take that chance now.  Close lid leaving "venting" on.  Set to "steam" and let cook for 12 minutes (you'll have to set a separate timer for this because the Instant Pot one does not start counting until it reaches high pressure).  Turn off Instant Pot and leave sealed for 10 more minutes (my idli had been a little too wet and not quite done when I opened it as soon as the pressure went down).

8) Open Instant Pot and remove stack of idli molds.  Remove idli with a rubber spatula.  Serve warm with sambar and coconut chutney.  Simran and I also like yogurt with this.  If you use the unsweetened plain cashew yogurt by Forager, the entire meal remains vegan.