Instant Upma Mix

Upma Mix

Upma is supposed to be an easy affair compared to idli or dosa. The process is not long drawn and you can cook up a simple Upma in 10 minutes.

But a nutritionally enriched Upma with good garnishing takes a lot of time.

My mother has created a Upma Mix for me which helps me make a nutritionally enriched Upma in a three minutes.

How To Make Upma With Instant Upma Mix

Ingredients

1 kilo suji - Semolina
1/4 kilo peanuts
1/4 kilo cashewnuts
Green chillies
Red chillies
Coriander and curry leaves
1/4 kg freshly grated coconut - roasted
Or copra powder - dry coconut grated

Seasoning

Tālitthal’, Tadka or seasoning means to add flavor to the dish with mustard seeds fried in oil. For this two spoonfulls of oil is taken in a pan and heated. After it is heated about 10 gm of mustard seeds are dropped in the oil. Learn more from common seasoning for all rice recipes.

Procedure

- Roast Semolina and set aside
- Deep fry peanuts and cashew nuts and add to Semolina
- Prepare seasoning - Take a little oil in a pan, add 50 gms mustard
seeds, 10 red chillies, 10 green chillies, 50 gms chick pea, curry
leaves
- Add roasted Semolina and roasted nuts to this seasoning
- Add salt and mix well
- Add grated dried coconut

Mix everything well and store in the fridge. When you want to make Upma, take the required amount, add it to heated water and mix well.

You can also add cooked vegetables to this Upma to make Vegetable Upma. Here I have taken out some frozen peas from the freezer. I am boiling them in water. I will add the Upma Mix to this water and my Upma will be ready in three minutes.

[caption id="attachment_161" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Frozen peas boiled in water to be added to upma"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_163" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Upma Ready To Eat In Three Minutes"][/caption]

If you want to learn the long process of making vegetable Upma read this post.

Make Instant Idli In Minutes

Making the idli batter is a long process and if I need to prepare idlis the next day I will have to make the preparations today and get the batter ready. I have no time or patience for this long drawn process. So my mother has created the idli mix for me.

I store the mix in powder form in the fridge and whenever I want to make idli I just take the required amount of the powder, mix it with water and steam cook. My idli is ready in minutes.

How to Make the Idli Mix

Instant Idli

3 cups Rice - idli thari - par boiled rice
2 cups - urad powder - black gram

Mix both, add salt, roasted kaju (broken), and perungayam (asafoetida) powder

This mix can be stored for months in the fridge.

We can use the idli plates or just any deep plate to make idlis. They need to be steam cooked in the pressure cooker, without the weight on.

They can also be cooked in the microwave oven.

The accompaniment to the idli is the chutney, which again is a long drawn process including grating the coconut.

My mother to the rescue. She has created an instant chutney mix. I just take out the powder out of the fridge, mix a little water and my chutney is ready in seconds.

How to Make Instant Chutney Mix

- 1/4 kilo Chana dal roasted - Chick Pea

- 6 red chillies

- 100 gram kaju roasted - cashew nut

- 50 gram imli - tamarind

- 1 coconut grated and roasted

Dry grind everything and store the powder.