What You Are Making
Upma starts with the sound of mustard seeds popping in hot ghee and the smell of curry leaves hitting the pan, which is how many South Indian mornings begin. The finished dish is a soft, fluffy heap of semolina in which you can still pick out individual grains, and not a sticky paste.
Two things decide whether it works: the proportion of water to semolina, and the order in which you combine them. The semolina has to be toasted dry before it meets any liquid. The water has to be hot, measured exactly, and at a full boil, and the semolina goes into it in a thin trickle, never the other way round. A hasty pour leaves lumps that stirring cannot fully rescue.
Upma is now eaten across the whole country. In Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala it is an everyday breakfast, and elsewhere it turns up as a fast tiffin dish. The airy, never-gummy texture people expect still traces back to southern kitchens, where it gets the same daily respect as idli or dosa.
The Dish’s Backstory
This is home cooking from the south, found in one shape or another in each of the four big southern states. Rava upma is the version most people elsewhere know. Karnataka's uppittu and the Andhra preparations differ mainly in the tempering, where chana dal and urad dal sometimes play a bigger part. Historians of the region note that semolina turned cheap and plentiful because colonial-era industrial mills produced it while grinding wheat flour, and that helped rava dishes such as upma and rava dosa settle into fixed recipes during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, though people had cooked semolina in other ways long before. Homes, canteens and restaurants well outside the south now put it on the morning table.
At the Stove, Step by Step
-
Prep
Toast the semolina dry
Put a wide, heavy pan over medium-low heat with no oil and add the semolina. Stir without stopping for five to seven minutes, until it turns a shade paler, smells nutty and warm, and feels dry and loose as the spoon moves through it. Transfer it to a plate. This step is what prevents a gluey upma.
-
Prep
Get the water nearly boiling
Start heating the water in a small saucepan or kettle as you prepare the seasoning, so that it is nearly at a boil when you need it. The timing is as important as the toasting: splashing cold water into the hot seasoning makes the semolina seize into clumps before it can drink evenly.
-
Cook
Temper the seeds and dals
Warm the oil or ghee in the pan where the semolina was toasted. Drop in the mustard seeds and wait until they crackle, then put in the urad dal, chana dal and cashews. A minute of frying turns the dals pale gold and the cashews toasty. Then come the curry leaves, chillies and asafoetida.
-
Cook
Soften the onion and vegetables
Add the onion and ginger and let the onion go soft and glassy, about three minutes. If you are using carrot and peas, add them now and cook two minutes more, only until they start to give. Steam from the upma will finish them.
-
Cook
Pour in the water and salt
Pour in the hot water, add the salt and let it come to a hard rolling boil. Water that is only hot will not do. Semolina dropped into water below a true boil swells unevenly.
-
Cook
Trickle in the semolina while stirring
Lower the flame slightly. With one hand rain the toasted semolina into the pan in a thin, even stream, and with the other stir fast and without pause. Rushing at this point is what causes lumps, so keep calm even if the pan spits. When all the semolina is in, you will see a thick, slightly bumpy porridge.
-
Cook
Cover and let it steam
Cover the pan and keep the heat low for three to four minutes, until the liquid has vanished and the semolina has swollen and turned soft and fluffy. Uncover, fluff it with a fork or spatula so the grains part, and let it sit open on the heat for a final minute to evaporate leftover surface moisture.
-
Serve
Add lemon and serve hot
Off the heat, stir through the lemon juice and coriander. Eat it immediately, while it is warm and light. As it cools, upma tightens and loses some of its airiness, so serve it from the pan and do not wait.
Stand-ins If You Are Short
Roasted vermicelli (semiya) can replace the semolina to make vermicelli upma, using the same seasoning and about the same quantity of water, though it needs slightly less cooking time after the water goes in. Other firm vegetables fit in at the seasoning stage: green beans, capsicum and tomato are regional favourites. Swap the oil for ghee if you want a richer, more traditional taste, especially in the seasoning.
Dial the Chilli Up or Down
Upma is meant to be soft and comforting, and nearly all its heat comes from the chillies in the seasoning. Keep it gentle with one dried red chilli that you lift out before serving, or omit chillies and count on ginger for warmth. To make it hotter, use two or three green chillies cut open lengthwise, or sprinkle in a little chilli powder with the salt.
Where It Goes Wrong
Hurrying the dry toasting, or skipping it, is the commonest slip and decides more than any other step whether upma comes out fluffy or gluey. Pouring in the semolina quickly or without constant stirring is next, and gives hard lumps that more cooking cannot dissolve. The water measure also trips people. Too little leaves the centre dry and underdone, too much turns the dish soft and porridge-like. One cup of semolina to two and a half cups of water is a sound starting point, with minor changes between brands.
Leftovers, Kept and Revived
Keeping: Refrigerate leftover upma in a lidded box for as long as two days, though it tightens and loses its airiness once cold. South Indian cooks usually make it fresh and finish it the same day, because upma that has been rewarmed is plainly denser than a fresh batch.
Reviving: Put it in a pan over low heat with a spoonful of water or milk, cover, and warm until hot throughout and the grains loosen again. In a microwave, cover the bowl with a damp paper towel and heat in brief bursts, though the texture stays denser than when fresh.
Handle This Part Carefully
The risk is low: the dish is dry, cooked through, and contains no raw dairy or egg. When it includes peas or carrot, cool the upma within about two hours of cooking, not longer at room temperature, then refrigerate it. That is ordinary handling for a cooked grain dish with vegetables stirred in.
Worth Opening Next
- Colleen Taylor Sen, "Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India" (Reaktion Books) — on the spread of semolina-based dishes following the growth of industrial wheat milling in colonial India.