ఉప్పుడు పిండి/ Uppudu Pindi

INGREDIENTS:

Rice 1 Cup

Salt to taste

Split yellow Mung bean/Split green gram dal/pesarapappu----1/4 cup

Curry leaves------few

Mustard seeds--------1tsp

Jeera/cumin seeds----1tsp

Minapappu/split black gram dal--1tbs

Red chillies/yendumirapakayalu--2

Oil---------2tbs

Water--------3 cups

METHOD:

1. Grind Rice to a coarse powder( just like Rava)

2.Heat oil in a pan add mustard seeds, when it splutters add minapappu.

3.Then add jeera, red chilly and curry leaves.
4.Add 3 cups of water , salt and boil it.
5.Wash pesarapappu and add to the boilling water.
6.After 5minutes add rava and stir.
7.Cover with lid and cook it on low flame.
8.Stir occasionally.
9. when rava become smooth paste remove from the fire.
10. Eat hot with chutneys.
This is a easy and heavy tiffin item. Enjoy with all chutneys, pacchadis and pickles.

సేమియా ఉప్మా: Semiya upma

Preparation time: 30 mins
Serves : 3





Ingredients:

2 cups semiya, roast in a tsp of ghee for 4-5 mts till golden brown
1 finely sliced large onion
3-4 slit green chillis
1″ ginger finely chopped
1 tbsp chopped coriander leaves (optional)
1/2 tbsp oil
1 tsp ghee
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tbsp urad dal and chana dal
1/2 tsp″ jeera
salt

Method

Heat oil in a cooking vessel, add the mustard seeds and let them splutter.
Add the urad,chana dal, jeera and saute them till the dal turn slightly brown.
Add green chillis,curry leaves and ginger and saute for 2 mts.
Add the chopped onions and saute on medium heat for 4 mts.
add 3 cups of water and add salt. bring it to boil.
Now, reduce heat and add the semiya and mix it lightly and see that no lumps form and it combines well.
Cover with lid and stir occasionally till water evaporates & semiya is cooked.
Add tsp of ghee and garnish with coriander leaves.
Serve hot with chutney or pickle of your choice.


For variation, you can add peas, grated carrot and any vegetable along with onions. Also, can add a cinnamon stick along with jeera. Make sure water quantity is 11/2 times the roasted semiya, otherwise the semiya would stick.
Tastes simply great.I make it whenever am in hurry and I make it in less than 20 mins. Try it out!

రవ ఉప్మా- Upma (Rava)

Serves two as a light snack. Preparation time: 15 minutes including preparation of ingredients to final cooking. Vegetable upma may take longer.

Ingredients:

1 cup Upma rava (coarse sooji, also called Bombay Rava)

3.25 cups water

For tempering:
1 tsp Black gram seeds (Minappappu)

1 tsp Mustard seeds

1 tsp Cumin seeds
2 chopped green chillies
5 slivers of ginger
1 medium sized onion, finely chopped
Peanuts to taste
2 pinches Turmeric
2 Pinches Asafoetida
A few curry leaves
1 Tsp Salt or to taste
1 tablespoon oil

Method:
1. Heat oil in a pan. Add Minappappu first, once it’s light brown, add peanuts. Add Mustard. When the seeds crackle, add Cumin, Turmeric, Asafoetida, ginger, curry leaves and onions. Add salt (Salt draws out the moisture from the onions and helps them become crisp sooner. However, traditional cooks believe in not adding salt first as it slows the cooking process. So please use your discretion, I noticed that adding salt really makes it cook faster actually since the vegetables shrivel & become crisp). Cook until the onions are browned.
2. Pour the water into the cooked onions and let this tempering-in-water heat until it is rapidly boiling on a high flame.
3. Add the upma rava gradually to this rapidly boiling water while stirring. The rava will rapidly absorb the water and the granules of rava will turn translucent.
4. Keep stirring until it solidifies to required consistency.
5. Reduce the flame to low and cover the pan. Cook for a minute and switch off the flame. If you like the upma to be roasted brown, wait until you see its bottom browning, then switch off the flame.

Squeeze a few drops of lemon juice onto the Upma just before serving. Serve with any Pacchadi/ Podi/ Pulusu as accompaniment.

Variations:
My mother was always obsessed about providing us with a balanced nutritious diet. The following can be added in upma tempering to make it more colourful, nutritious, tasty:
1. A small quantity of pesara pappu (Dhuli moong daal, dehusked split green gram) to add protein. The quantity shouldn't be material enough to alter taste, nevertheless, it's there in it!
2. A fistful of green peas add colour and protein.
3. Half a teaspoon of Sesame seeds add nutrition without altering the taste, they vanish into the dish.
4. Chopped vegetables such as tomatoes, carrots, bell peppers, potatoes, green peas add taste, colour and nutrition. Add them in step 1 along with the onions and proceed as per normal recipe.
5. Nuts such as Cashwenuts.

Vegetable upma looks very appetizing along with being tasty and nutritious! (Vegetables give off moisture so boil a little less water for every cup of rava if you use lot of moist vegetable, or fry the vegetables crisp before adding water.)

Suggestions/Precautions:

1. The amount of water to be added varies with the quality of upma rava & water temperature. I realized that I sometimes needed to add more water than specified in the recipe (upto 3.5 cups), so keep a small glass of water ready by your side.

2. Upma rava tends to lump together when dropped into the water, so make sure the water is rapidly boiling and stir it as you pour the rava. Also, to prevent rava from lumping, it is first roasted to a light brown. I didn’t need to roast my rava since I was making a very small manageable quantity. But if making larger quantities, it may be advisable to roast it first.

3. If the peanuts were fresh, add them initially so that they have time to get fried. If they were pre-roasted, you can add them later in the tempering.

4. Turmeric is an optional ingredient, so is asafoetida, not everyone adds them to Upma.

5. If you want to save more time: While the onions/vegetables are cooking in step 1, you can boil the water simultaneously in another saucepan & add the ready-boiled water into the browned vegetables of step 2. This way, the tempering-in-water will reach a rapid boil within a few seconds.

Culture: 

This item is paired with "Pesarattu" and eaten as "Pesarattu-Upma" in Andhra. 

Trivia:
Of course vegetable upma is my nutritionist mommy's recipe, but mom is a disaster when it comes to noting down the proportions scientifically, so Parakka (my cousin) provided the technical details :-)
Since this recipe is intended as a gift for Kaavya, Kaavya, see I cooked without cilantro, please add cilantro to it in my name! ;-)