Upma Kozhukatta? may sound unusual for many, as this is typically a Naatupurathu recipe which is almost loosing its popularity among most city folks. Only few people actually know or do this at home, a heavy stuffy breakfast or tiffin item only known to many as Upma Urundai. These are traditionally made with pounded rice, typically made from short grain boiled rice or idli rice. Any variety can be used to make these urundais… long grain, short grain, par or fully boiled rice, or even Idli rawa. I ‘ve used raw sona masoori for my recipe and this is how it goes.
Ingredients
1 cup Raw rice (sona masoori)
¼ cup Fresh grated coconut
1¼ tsp Salt (or to taste)
3 nos Dry red chilies
½ tsp Mustard
¼ tsp Cumin seeds
½ tsp Bengal gram (kadala paruppu)
¼ tsp Split black gram
1 tsp Oil
½ tsp Asafoetida
10 nos Curry leaves
Method
This is pretty lengthy process and little time consuming, so save all your patience for the clean up task.
Soak raw rice (Sona masoori/ Pachai arisi / Idli rice ) for 2 hours in enough water. Then wash and rinse for few times and drain all the water using a colander. This could take about 10 minutes to make the rice partially dry.
Spread the wet rice over a clean kitchen towel and let it stay for 30 to 40 minutes to dry out completely. Then using your mixie, grind to a coarse powder and also add the grated coconut along with it during the last few pulses. (If using a wet grinder, then grind both rice and coconut together with 1/2 to 1 cup water almost similar to idli batter consistency) Keep this ready.
In a wide kadai/ wok, heat oil and splutter mustard, cumin seeds, bengal gram, split black gram with broken red chilies. Toast the curry leaves and sprinkle asafoetida powder. Now add about 2 cups of water with salt and bring it to a boil. Add the ground rice and coconut mixture and keep stirring, breaking all lumps until it rolls like a thick mass. (All water will evaporate and will thicken like upma). Switch off and let cool for 10 minutes. Do not stir until its totally dry, we need little loose sticky dough.
Meanwhile get a idli steamer ready filled with water and oil the plates. Applying little oil to your hands, shape the dough into small kozhukattais / dumplings and place them in the idli plate. Cover and steam for 8 to 10 minutes over medium high flame. When done, the dumplings will look shinny and the colour will change to pale white. Switch off at this stage. Serve hot with spicy kaara chutney or spicy podis. These are really stuffy breakfast and a few could soon fill your stomach. These are doubles steamed rice dumpling and healthy alternative (except for coconut) for dosai or idli.
"Good when served hot and fresh. Re-heating not advisable and tend to make the dumplings rubbery and hard."