Undi is one of the most popular breakfast dishes for many of the Konkanis. But I never heard or tasted this before. From few days, I was getting a lot of requests for this dish. I had few recipes of this dish, but I wanted something tried and tested. Aayi gave me a recipe for this when she saw many requests for this recipe here, but somehow, I never tried it – somehow I feel if Aayi had developed this blog instead of me, this blog would have been in a better shape today :).
2-3 days back, Gowri sent me this recipe and same day I also got a request from one more person for this dish. So I thought it is high time for me to try this. I tried it for breakfast yesterday and it came out very well. My husband’s remark on this – “It tastes somewhere between kadamb , idli and upma . If you consider these three as the three nodes of the triangle, Undi is the center of the triangle”. Isn’t that a sweet explanation for a simple query like, “How is it?” :D.
Today Aruna sent me Undi recipe. The only difference in the two was, around 1 tea spn sugar was added instead of curry leaves and green chilies. She also mentioned a different shape – “Make small balls of it, flatten on plam and make a small hole, just press a little with finger”.
Thanks to you both for this recipe. See Nandita’s Upma Kozhakattai which is similar to Konkani Undi .
Ingredients: 1 cup rice rava(idli rava) ½ cup grated coconut(fresh or frozen) 2-3 green chillies 4-5 curry leaves 1 tea spn urad daal 1 tea spn mustard seeds ¼ tea spn fenugreek seeds 3 tbl spn coconut oil
Method: Heat coconut oil add mustard seed, fenugreek, urad daal , slit green chillies and curry leaves. When it starts popping add rava and fry for 3-4 minutes. Add salt, coconut and boiling water(around 3 cups). Stir and close the lid. Cook until it is completely cooked.
Let it cool a bit and then form round small balls. Grease a cooker vessel and lineup these balls.
Steam these balls in cooker for 15 minutes. Serve hot with coconut chutney. I served it with asafoetida chutney .
Serves : 2-3 Preparation time : 25mins
PS: Be careful with the use of fenugreek( methi ) seeds, they might give a tinge of bitterness to this dish.
Some 2-3 months back, Aruna had sent me recipes of many dishes. This was one of them. She said, “You must be knowing we prepare different types of saru-upkari . Basically it is just pressure cooking the pulses and adding a seasoning/ phanna of mustard, red/green chilies and garlic. On the fasting days, curry leaves are used instead of garlic. This is a little different type than the authentic saru-upkari , which my mom makes and we all like it. One can have this like soup. Once in a while, my mom cooks this and simple upkaris. No daal or no randayi . Whenever everyone gets bored of daal , this dish is prepared. She makes this out of all pulses”.
I was hearing the name Saru-upkari for the first time. In Konkani, Saru means, something like rasam , it is a watery dish used both as a drink and gravy. Upkari means a dry stir fried dish with coconut. After exchanging 2-3 mails with Aruna, I understood that, Saru-upkari is a combination of both these. In other words, it is a watery upkari with pulses. Thanks Aruna, for introducing me to this dish.
Read Manjula’s version of saru-upkari .
Ingredients: 1 cup yellow dried peas( vatane ) 1 tomato 2 garlic cloves crushed (or 4-5 Indian small garlic cloves) 1/2 tea spn mustard seeds 2 green chilies A pinch turmeric 1 tea spn oil 1 tbl spn grated coconut(optional) Salt
I used green dried peas instead of yellow ones. Any pulses can be used. Tastes good with Kulith (Horsegram), chowli (Black eyed beans), black chana , moong , tingaavro (navy beans) and maybe many others.
Method: Soak the yellow peas overnight and pressure cook with turmeric and green chills until soft and mushy. Allow to cool. Keep oil for seasoning, add mustard. When they start popping, add crushed garlic and fry till garlic is slightly brown. Add the tomatoes and cook for 2 min. Now add the boiled peas and mix well. Add required water and bring to boil. Serve hot with rice.
Serves : 2-3 Preparation time : 30mins
Note : It should not be too watery. A semi thick gravy goes well with plain rice.
