Rava Upma

Since rava upma is the easiest meal prepared with commonly available ingredients, it is being served often for breakfast or dinner in most of the south Indian families. Hence people especially children get bored of taking upma, but we can make this simple meal appetizing just by adding a handful of fresh green peas. Rava upma with fresh peas can be enjoyed the most when served warm in the evening particularly during monsoon.

Although upma does not require any accompaniment, children like to take it with sugar and others may like to take it with coconut chutney or spicy pickle.

Rava upma recipe:

Cooking Time : 10 minutes

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

1. Roasted Rava (varutha ravai) – 2 cups (400 g)
2. Mustard seeds (kadugu) – 1 tsp
3. Black gram (ulundhu) – 1/2 tsp
4. Bengal gram (kadalai paruppu) – 1/2 tsp (optional -I have not used them in here)
5. Onions (vengayam) – 3 or shallots (chinna vengayam) – 250 g
6. Green Chillies (pachai milagai) – 5
7. Boiled peas (veha vaitha pattani) – 1/2 cup ( 100 g)
8. Any vegetable oil – 1/2 cup (I used sunflower oil)
9. Water – 3 cups (600 ml)
10. Salt – 1 tablespoon

How to prepare delicious rava upma:

• Chop onions finely, slit green chillies and keep them aside.
• Heat a pan with oil, add mustards and wait till the crackling sound stops.
• Add onion & chillies and saute till onions turn transparent.
• Add boiled peas, water & salt and bring to a rolling boil.
• Now reduce the flame to low, add rava and stir quickly to avoid the formation of  lumps.
• Close pan with a lid for 5 minutes allowing to cook rava soft & to form a thin crust at the bottom.
• Remove the pan from heat and transfer upma to a hot casserole.
• Serve hot upma with sugar or coconut chutney.

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Tips & Tweaks:

• It is essential to add rava only when the water reaches the rolling boil as it helps to get the perfect consistency.
• Measurement for oil, salt & water is also very important to get the perfect crumbly texture.
• We also need to roast plain rava before cooking, else it may look soggy and unappetizing.
• I used sunflower oil here, instead we can add coconut oil and any other neutral vegetable oil in the ratio of 1:3. But if we use coconut oil alone it makes us feel heavy even after taking a few spoons full of upma.
• I prefer to use slit green chillies so that they can be easily removed from upma; besides finely chopped chillies make the upma hotter compared to the one made with slit chillies.
• Upma tastes even more delicious when shallots are used in place of onions.
• We can serve upma garnished with grated coconut to children as they enjoy the sweetness of coconut.
• We usually scrape off the crusts at the bottom of the pan and serve to children as they like to relish these delicious crispy crusts the most.