This morning was a new experiment for me and today I was happy to be assisted by my little sous chef in the kitchen. I’m so excited at how easy and non- complicated it was to make this breakfast/ brunch that I will share the recipe in this article below, for you to try out!
Growing up in an Anglo Indian family, pepper water with rice was something I thoroughly enjoyed, but slowly the pepper water fascination shifted to sambar-rice! If there’s one thing I can’t complain about during my Chennai stint- it’s the fantastic South Indian food options that I managed to experiment while living there for two years during my MBA.
Those of you who live in Singapore and are South Indian food lovers, would have definitely visited #muruganidli and #mtr at Little India. My husband and I would frequent both places on Sunday mornings for our fill of upma, idlis and my favourite- Sambar with rice.
Given the unfortunate COVID-19 scare in Singapore, we didn’t want to visit crowded places this weekend. Moreover, since I’m travelling to India tomorrow, I wanted to be extra careful and have home food but at the same time, I didn’t want to ruin my husband’s excitement for his South Indian breakfast craving. Thus, I finally got myself down to trying my hand at two of our favourite dishes from the South- upma and sambar with rice. Everything was made from scratch, including the tamarind paste and it truly exceeded our expectations. I am thrilled with how this turned out and will definitely make this more often.
Homemade Upma:
Step 1: Clean and roast 1 cup sooji till it turns a bit crunchy.
Step 2: Chop up a large onion and 2 green chilies. Keep a handful of cashew nuts, 3 curry leaves and 1 tbsp chana dal for the next step.
Step 3: Heat oil in a pan, add 1 tsp mustard seeds and let them splutter. Then add in all ingredients from step 2- the cashew nuts, chana dal, curry leaves followed by the onions and let the fry well.
Step 4: Pour about 2.5 cups of water and salt, followed by the crunchy sooji from step 1. Cook on a medium flame and stir well to remove any lumps. Your perfect homemade upma should be ready to serve in 5 minutes and I promise you will love it!
Sambar Dal:
Step 1: Boil Toor Dal (I am still petrified of pressure cookers, so I invest extra time to let it boil in a cooking pot) and add salt to taste.
Step 2: While the dal is boiling, chop up some vegetables and put them in boiling water to soften. I used some shallots, tomatoes and okra.
Step 3: Add 1.5 heaped tbsps of sambar powder, 1 tsp red chili powder, 1/2 tsp salt and 2 tbsps tamarind paste.
Step 4: Pour the cooked mashed toor dal to this and bring to a boil.
Step 5: Sauté some mustard seeds (1/2 tsp), 3 curry leaves and 2 slit red chilies. Once fried, add this to the boiling sambar and mix well.
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