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.

Flattened Rice With Sour Lemon Juice

Ingredients:

Flattened Rice – ½ padi

Lemon Juice – veesam 1/16 padi

Red Chillies – ¼ palam

Asafoetida – veesam 1/16 r.e

Fenugreek – ¼ palam

Salt – 1 palam

Turmeric Powder – 1/16 r.e

Chana Dal/Bengal Gram – veesam 1/16 padi

For seasoning:

Ghee – veesam 1/16 padi

Red Chillies – ¼ palam

Urad Dal – ½ palam

Mustard – ½ palam

Curry Leaves – ¼ r.e

Method:

1. Pound flattened rice to cracked rice consistency in a pounder. Soak it in water for some time. Fry red chillies, asafoetida and fenugreek in oil and powder it. Add powdered salt and turmeric powder to the lemon juice and mix it with the flattened rice.

2. Soak chana dal in water for some time and dry it in the shade. Fry this in little ghee and add it to the flattened rice. Refer to the seasoning recipe and use ghee, red chilli, urad dal, mustard, and curry leaves. Add the flattened rice to this seasoning and remove from
fire after 2 or 3 minutes to use. This dish can also be prepared without cracking the flattened rice in the pounder.