Unlike the cuisine in North of India, the food of the South is predominated by rice as a primary ingredient – long, short, small, broken, flattened. This variety makes for some of the most healthy and interesting breakfast recipes, especially in Southern & Western India, particularly Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

In Southern kitchens, upma as breakfast has an ubiquitous presence. Quick, easy, nutritious and filling, a stomach full of upma can sustain a person for several hours without getting hungry or craving for the next feed. Upma is usually made of coarsely ground rice or wheat (called semolina), enhanced with seasoning in ghee or oil (such as one described in 22) and a fair amount of vegetables such as beans, carrots, green peas, etc. Another popular breakfast, a standard fare particularly in the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, is a variety of preparations made from flattened rice called Poha.

Preparation

The key aspect of breakfast food such as upma, poha, porridge is its quickness and ease of preparation – the whole process does not take more than 15 minutes, from start to finish. Hence, it is an ideal item to prepare when the number of people to feed is large or one is pressed for time.

Ingredients

As the recipes below will show, the basic ingredients are coarsely ground rice or wheat or flattened rice, seasoning with ghee and water as required. Nowadays, upma is also prepared using different kinds of millets, coarsely ground bajra, jowar, maize, etc.

Plain Upma (Thick Porridge)

Ingredients:

Pure Water – 3/8 padi

Salt – ½ palam

Rice Flour – ¼ padi

Grated Coconut – 5 palam

Asafoetida – veesam 1/16 r.e

For Seasoning:

Ghee Or Oil – 1½ palam

Red Chillies – ¼ palam

Urad Dal/Black gram – ½ palam

Mustard Seeds – ¼ palam

Curry Leaves – ¼ palam

Method:

1. Heat ghee or oil in a pot that can hold 2 padis of water. After it boils, add red chillies, mustard, urad dal, and refer to recipe 22nd for seasoning.

2. Clean curry leaves and add to the dish. Add pure water. Add powdered salt. Mix rice flour and grated coconut and put it in the boiling water and stir continuously. It should not form lumps.

3. After the flour is cooked remove it from fire and keep it on slow fire for 5 minutes and remove it to use.

4. The rice flour should be ground coarsely for this dish. You may even add toor dal to the rice while grinding. If you want to add asafoetida, add soon after the seasoning is ready and just before the water is added.