Dec 16, 2009

Arisi Upma - How to turn a BLAH dish into a WOW dish!

This recipe is for my friend Kamakshi..and she happens to be the blog's very first follower too! Thank you Kamakshi..here's your on demand recipe! Do try it out and let me know how it turns out!

This is a very simple, quick and easy Upma recipe. But, before I start - let me tell you this. A lot of people cook this and then pressure cook it the second time. I like it just pan cooked. Also, nobody adds cashews to this upma...I do. I'm crazy but I do like a little bit of cashews in all my upmas! It kids of make it so tasty and gives a rich kick to a simple dish! Kind of like the 15 mins of fame! Goes from a blah dish to a wow dish! Get it?

To make this upma, wash about 1 cups of rice and 1/4 cups of toor daal separately. Drain all the water and let it sit for about 30 mins.



 

Then, in a mixie or food processor, grind the daal first coarsely like this.

 

Now add the wet rice to this and then add 1 tsp of cumin, a few red chillies and 1/2 tsp of black pepper. Grind all of this together again coarsely.

 

This is the consistency we need. Not too fine. Not too lumpy.

 

In a wide pan, add about 1 tsp of oil and 1 tsp of ghee. Add mustard seeds and splutter. Then, add about 1/4 cup of cashews to this and roast it a little bit till they begin to brown.

 

Now, add the powdered mixture to the pan and roast for a min.

 

Add salt to taste. Add about 2 cups of water or enough to cover all the mixture and another 1/2 inch on top.

 

This much water. Now, cover the pan. Turn the stove to simmer and let this cook.

 

When all the water is gone, and the upma looks cooked, add another 1/2 tsp of ghee and mix well. You are done! How easy was that?!

 

This is the chutney that goes good with Arisi upma. This is raw coconut chutney - that means nothing in here needs to be cooked.

Just take a mixie bowl and add all of these -about 1/2 cup fresh or frozen coconut, 1 tbsp urad daal, 2 green chillies, about a small piece of tamarind, salt and water. Grind well to a chutney consistency. You are done! Perfect tangy chutney for the upma. You do have to cook just the tadka on top - splutter mustard seeds and add on top.

 

Here's the wonderful upma and coconut chutney!

 

This guy needs his close up shot published!

 

These are for pure obsession!

 

 

This is how my daughter loves to eat them. She calls them Rice balls. And eats it with sugar! I made a smiley face for her with the rice balls!

 

Enjoy! Peace out!


25 comments:

  1. What a recipe...Normal rice and Daal turned into a superb delicacy..
    Really aweosme

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  2. Thanks Anu... This looks really yummmmmmmmy. :) Good for my son too.

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  3. Lovely.....
    I m new at ur space.. thanks for sharing this new upuma variety....

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  4. Wow wat a delectable dish..looks amazing..

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  5. I like the smiley face. I add cashews to whatever dish possible!! Looks simple and easy to make.

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  6. Wonderful.. the instructions are crystal clear.. cannot go wrong even if I tried.. thanks

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  7. the upma looks ver very tempting and inviting with a detailed step by step explanation of the recipe.you can visit my blog and give ur comments.

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  8. the arisi upma looks delicious with a detailed description.

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  9. Tempting arisi upma and mine still lies in my draft for a long period.

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  10. oh wow... i dont how to make this.... perfect for ekadasi vratham... but feeling a bit lazy.. can u pls courier this to me??? :P

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  11. nice! what kind of rice did you use? normal ponni will do?

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  12. Lovely a definite Blah to WOW dish.

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  13. Upma looks really yummy and mouth watering treat!
    Congrats on completing one year, 12 layer cake is a huge one and hats off to you for making it :-)

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  14. It is news to me that dal can be added to arisi upma. I never thought it can be added. Mine looks white in colour. This one really looks delicious.

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  15. hey anu
    nice. will try out arisi upma ur way. we add a lil coconut to it and i have never been fond of this dish :) let me try it ur way

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  16. defintely a wow dish, i have tried many of ur recipes n i must say they all r wow,n d pinch of ur humour makes d recipes even tastier,keep up d gud work,finally u r d 1 who has motivated me 2 cook, thanx a lot

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  17. Thank you everyone for the kind comments.

    Thank you Anonymous for the wonderful comment! I'm really happy that all my hard work here is actually useful for someone to cook! I appreciate you taking your time to try out recipes and leaving me feedback. Thanks!!

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  18. thank you thank you sooo much you are amazing!!!!

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  19. kindly please mention what rawa are you using upma rawa???

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  20. @ Anonymous - for this dish, you do not require rawa. Its just rice and toor daal. For Rawa upma, I used the regular fine rawa available in stores here. You also get roasted rawa sometimes and that works well for upma too.

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  21. Do u really mean urd dal for the chtuney ?

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  22. @Sumithra - yes..I did use Urad daal - I actually used the whole urad daal or urad gota as you can see in the picture. Normally you do make chutney with channa daal but this works great too. Try it sometime and let me know if you like it. Thanks for stopping by!!

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  23. Tried this today, of course with the chutney. Came out really good! Thanx!

    I'm not able to comment from Facebook, do u know why?

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  24. @ Sumithra - thanks again for trying. Glad you liked it.

    On the FB page, you will have to "Like" the page first - then it will let you type in comments. FB page is much more interactive and I try to be on top of comments there. So, do try - hope to see you there soon!

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