Garam Masala Tuesdays: Rava Uttapam

Vegetable Rava Uttapam – easy and quick uttapams made with rava or sooji or semolina.

When I was in college in Delhi and staying in the AFWWA hostel, every Tuesday for breakfast we would get Uttapam. I generally never had time to eat breakfast; I was always running late. I would get the Uttapams packed and take it to college to eat later in the day, grabbing my fruit and eating that as breakfast. Even on days when I did have time to eat breakfast, I would make it a point to pack 2 or 3 since my friends had gotten used to them and looked forward to Tuesday Uttapams. I miss college days!

I don’t cook much south indian fare at home, even though I love dosa, idli, sambhar. I am more comfortable with cooking north indian cuisine and stick to that. My idlis are generally made from a packet or are the quick rava idlis I have posted before. The only time I have cooked dosas from a scratch batter is when my friend was kind enough to loan me some of hers. Once I did try fermenting my own batter but it was a huge fail. This was when I had just started cooking about 6 years back, and ever since I have just stuck to eating dosas outside or counting on my south indian friends to make them for me.

Uttapam is a thick pancake like savory breakfast dish. Unlike dosa, which is more crepe like, Uttapams are thicker and have the toppings cooked right into the batter. Uttapam batter generally consists of ground fermented rice and urad dal. But I generally make the quicker and easier version of uttapam with rava/sooji/semolina flour, which requires no fermentation, grinding and only a 30 minute soaking of the semolina flour in yogurt. And that is why it is my go-to recipe when I want to make something quick, but delicious and filling.

The best part of this recipe is that even if you make ahead they remain soft, making them ideal to make and pack them for your or your child’s tiffin to have later in the day. This recipe is adapted from the utthapam recipe in India: Cookbook and if there is one cookbook on Indian cuisine you would like to own this should be it!

I generally top the uttapams with a mixture of tomatoes, onions, green chillies and coriander but you could add other grated vegetables as well- grated carrot would be nice. You could make these plain but I don’t know why you would want to.

I love serving them with a little homemade coconut chutney (I just realized I haven’t shared my recipe on the blog yet- I will change that soon) and few tablespoons of sambhar, even though they are just as good served as is. My sambhar recipe might make a south indian granny cringe, but I just use V’s crockpot recipe (adding some veggies, preferably drumsticks while cooking) and make a few variations in the tempering- add sambhar masala, onions, mustard seeds, curry leaves and green chillies.