Breakfast for Busy Mornings ~ Onion Uttapam Recipe

Making breakfast remains one of the most important tasks of the day…..in many ways also the most important meal of the day …. Amma would be irate if I left the house without breakfast and claim I didn’t have the time….rest assured the next day I would get my wakeup call at least half an hour early to pay for my sins of the previous morning…..when I set up my own home, I realized what it takes to set meal upon meal on the table everyday…for as long as it takes…apart from other realizations that it takes the patience of an angel not to clobber the ringer of the doorbell at 7 a.m on a Sunday ……breakfast continued to be a big part of the daily routine….i discovered south indian breakfasts with a vengeance, kept my weekends free for slightly more complicated stuff and learnt to plan ahead, just to make life less miserable…..now my abiding best friend is the wet grinder….and I panic if I am without my weekly stock of batter for idlis and dosas (in its many avatars)……

Uttapam is something that I turn to when I have dosa batter that is a little over 2 days old….and turning a little sour…. An addition of some finely chopped veggies and spices and voila….gourmet breakfast is served in less time than it takes to brush your teeth. Crisp around the sides and soft and spongy towards the middle, it is what breakfast dreams are made of….. 🙂 ….. and on busy mornings, they can be eaten on their own with no other accompaniments

Uttapam that way is very versatile and accommodating….taking under its wing (quite literally) a wide array of vegetables….the only condition i can think of, is for the vegetables to be chopped fine so that they do not stick out from the batter like a different entity…..onions and tomato are the most popular accomplices of uttappam …. But beans, carrot, spinach and cabbage too make worthy counterparts.

The batter needs to be slightly thicker than normal dosa batter, and after ladling onto a hot griddle / tawa spreading with the back of a rounded spoon should be kept to a minimum so that the uttapam is nice and thick and spongy too……there are two ways of making uttapams, one is to cook the uttapam and sprinkle the top with the veggies before you flip it over…..and the second is to mix the veggies into the batter and make the uttapams….i prefer the second method on weekdays…because it is fuss free and reserve the first versions for weekends or when I am making it for guests…. Served with chutney or and sambhar, it will keep you going till way past lunchtime…….this is going off to WBB# 20….the fabulous event started by Nandita at Saffron Trail, and this month hosted by Mansi of Fun and Food…..Also to the mela of dosas which is being hosted by Srivalli

Onion Uttapam

makes about 6

3-4 cups Dosa batter (rice and urad dal in the proportion of 3:1, soaked overnight, ground to a smooth batter and fermented for about 6 hrs)

Salt to taste

1 tsp jeera (whole)

1 T finely chopped green chillies (reduce the amount if threshold for heat is lesser)

1 T finely chopped curry leaves

2 T finely chopped fresh coriander leaves

½ cup finely chopped onion

(Additionally / optionally 1 cup finely chopped vegetables of your choice)

Heat the tava / griddle. Mix all the ingredients together and spread a large spoonful of the batter onto the hot griddle. Spread slightly but not very thin, batter should be spread to about 1/3^rd of an inch. Drizzle a little oil around the uttapam. Cook on medium heat till the sides begin to turn brown. Flip over and cook for half a minute. Serve hot with chutney / sambhar.