Like all newly married women, I was eager to impress my husband with my culinary skills. He did not seem very confident that I possessed any such skill, and I do not blame him, because he knew I went to the kitchen only when I caught a whiff of something delicious cooking and wanted to satisfy the subsequent hunger pangs.
Cooking did look simple when my mother did it, considering she did not spend a lot of time in the kitchen, but successfully produced yummy meals. Reassured by the ease with which my mom cooked, and armed with “Kerala Cookery “ by Mrs K.M Mathew, I set off to make my first ever breakfast of uppumavu and steamed plantains. I followed the recipe to the letter, hoping to end up with the delicious sweet dish that my mom made, but the end result resembled a disastrous porridge. I was familiar with this genre of uppumavu, having stayed as a paying guest in ernakulam for a couple of months. But I disliked it wholeheartedly, and anyway, it was supposed to be eaten with chutney, not steamed plantain!!! And worse still, my husband had never even seen “porridgy” uppumavu before, and remarked that it looked slightly different…He sportingly ate some, but I could not muster up the courage to do the same and it sadly ended up in the trash can.
What followed was a discussion with mom on phone, on my way to office. And it was concluded that I had added twice the amount of water than was required. My only consolation was that a lot of people would have enjoyed the uppumavu I made, though I was not one among them.
Below is the recipe of the uppumavu as my mom makes it.
Ingredients:
1. 1 cup rava
2. 2 tbsp ghee(clarified butter)/butter
3. 1 tsp mustard seeds
4. 1 small onion finely chopped
5. 1 tsp ginger finely chopped
6. 2 green chillies chopped
7. 1 cup water
8. A few curry leaves
9. Salt to taste
Method
Heat a tablespoon of ghee/butter in a wok. Add rava and fry till you start getting the aroma of the fried rava. Keep this rava aside.
Heat the remaining ghee/butter in the same wok. Add mustard seeds. When they splutter, add the chopped onion and sauté. When onion changes colour, sauté chopped ginger, green chillies and curry leaves as well . Add water and let it boil. Add salt and mix well. While the water is bubbling, add the rava slowly, mixing all the time, so that no lumps are formed.
Enjoy with steamed plantain, sugar and ghee.
Upma is my absolute favourite South Indian dish. Years ago I learnt to make a very simple version, just oil, mustard seeds, onion, curry leaves, semolina and salt, and it stuck with me until today. Reading your post makes me want to try to spice it up a bit, so I'll give your mom's recipe a try:) Thank you for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteHi this is the recipe i was looking for .I hate vegetables in my upma
ReplyDeletethankyou