Khojana: Exploring Indian Food

Discovering Upma

When I first heard of it, Upma joined a list of inscrutable names that I was stumbling into as I discovered new dishes. I had seen it mentioned online, and occasionally in my cookbooks, but as far as I can remember, never encountered it in a restaurant. Initially it didn’t really spark any interest with me, so I never considered delving deeper. It seemed sort of plain; semolina with a spare smattering of spices and vegetables typically served for breakfast. While there are many variations, how different could they be, I reasoned with myself. It didn’t seem to have the fire I was searching for at the time. I was typically drawn to more complex recipes. The longer the list of spices, the better it would be, right?

One day though, kind of dispirited with my standard breakfast (peanut butter sandwich — no Fluff please), I decided that I would try making Upma and see what the fuss was all about. I dug around online looking for an appropriate recipe. Like others trying to watch their diet, I kept my eyes peeled for a recipe with less carbs, or at least more fiber. I was rewarded when I found a recipe that used oatmeal rather than the more common semolina. Trader Joe’s had the Steel-Cut Oats I was looking for, with less carbs and more fiber; not to mention quick cooking. So I gave the recipe a whirl.

The first try turned out OK, even though the oats didn’t really cook all the way and insisted on sticking to the bottom of the pot. Nonetheless, it tasted pretty good. Surprised and encouraged, I tried making it again with better results. But it would take me a few more tries before I got the oats to cook right. Along the way I found another recipe, and used that to adjust some of the ingredients more to my tastes (added tomato, removed peas). The Upma seemed to keep pretty well in the fridge, so I began making it on the weekends so that I could quickly reheat a bowl during the week for an easy breakfast on the days I worked from home.

On those work from home days, I was able to relax and begin the day with the flavors of ginger, cumin, curry leaves and just a hint of Thai chili occasionally surface in a bowl. I was surprised when I realized that I was enjoying the simplicity of the dish. This was not a sum-is-greater-than-the-parts recipe, but more like a time-share with each ingredient having it’s 15 instants of fame. I was starting to become a fan.

After adjusting the recipe to my liking, I next turned my attention to how I should garnish a nicely reheated bowl of Upma. At first, while following the recipe, I had been adding cashews right after tempering the oil with spices and dal. But because the cashews I used were already roasted, they wound up losing their crunch. I decided that I preferred my cashews with a crunch. So, I tried adding them as a garnish, before reheating the Upma. This worked well! Occasionally, I would sprinkle a bit of lemon juice after reheating the Upma to create another layer of flavor. I initially thought this was not really necessary but have since changed my mind since the tang of the lemon juice would perk it up a bit.

Continuing my khojana for the ideal garnish, I tried topping my reheated Upma with various spices blends such as: garam masala, Dabeli masala, chat masala and even my brother’s homemade Berbere spice. On the Upma, none of these really tickled my fancy, so I moved on to trying a few bottled chutneys. These did not work either. But on a whim I tried just a bit of Huy Fong Chili Garlic sauce (by the Sriracha people) and that did the trick! It added just a bit of a kick and married quite well with the lemon juice. Curiously although the recipe calls for coriander leaves as a garnish, I have yet to try them.

Poking around online, I found another recipe which included some different ingredients: specifically ragi flour, which is not a common base for Upma! I decided to try this one, but blend the ragi flour with semolina (which is typically used for Upma). I was happy with the results, and decided, as I had done in the past, to “Frankenstein” my favorite parts of each recipe together. I wound up with a base recipe that I could interchange oatmeal or my ragi/semolina blend. And all was well, until…

A Change in the Weather

As autumn descended on my neighborhood, I started to deliberate: “what if I change some of the spicing around?” The spices in the two recipes I was using to create the base of my Upma are typically associated with southern dishes (mustard seeds, urd dal, curry leaves etc…). I tend to gravitate to southern spicing in the summer months, but opt for spicing associated with northern curries during the fall and winter. I started to experiment, and quickly came up with a recipe that stars black cumin — a spice that has its own very distinctive flavor. I was surprised at how thoroughly the black cumin permeated the Upma, and how well I thought it worked! So I created a cousin recipe that I could make during the cooler months.

I settled on these recipes fairly quickly (by my standards), and began making one of them every two or three weeks. I planned to add both versions to the three-ring binder containing my favorite recipes. But before I did, I was a bit concerned about how long each recipe was taking to prepare. As an experiment, I tried freezing one serving to see if it would survive. It defrosted without incident, so I next tried doubling the recipe and freezing half to reduce how often I would have to make it. This worked well, so I adjusted quantities for both versions in my recipe book.

A few months later, to further maximize my time, I decided to try doubling the recipes yet again! The plan was to make double the base ingredients of the (already doubled) recipe. This was the real time-intensive part of my recipes. Cutting and cooking the vegetables was taking me 40 minutes or so — and that’s before adding the oatmeal!

My experiment worked like this: When the first part (spices and vegetables) was cooked, I would remove half of the base and freeze it for another day. To the remainder, I would continue the recipe adding the oatmeal or ragi/semolina and rest of the ingredients. This method would give me up a double recipe as before (10-12 servings in all), but also a ready-to-use base in the freezer for the next time I needed to make it. Win. Win. Win!