Rice Vermicelli Upma/Akki shavige/

Akki Shavige is a breakfast delicacy in Iyengar family. You just need few basic ingredient from your pantry and make this dish. I remember eating it in Kadambam restraunt which serve authentic Iyengar cuisine in Bangalore. How to make it? I learned it from my husband :). It's very simple and quick.

Ingredients 
Akki shavige(Rice vermicelli) - 2 cups
1/2 Capsicum chopped into dice size
4-5 Green Chili (adjust it as per your taste)
1/2 lemon juice (adjust as per taste)
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp tumeric powder
1 red chilli cut into half
1 tsp urad dal
Few curry leaves
2 tbsp spoon oil
Salt to taste.
Few string of coriander for garnish

How I Make
1. Boil 5-6 cups of water in a pot. Once the water starts to boil, add vermicelli to it and make sure it is immersed completely in water.

2. Allow to cook for 3-4 minutes (check if vermicelli is cooked, it shouldn't become mushy). Using pasta strainer drain the water and run cold water on vermicelli.

3. Heat oil in a big pan. Once hot add mustard seeds, urad dal, curry leaves, green chilli,
red chilli, saute until urad dal turns golden brown.

4. Add capsicum and cook till 3/4th done, add tumeric, salt and vermicelli. Mix well and cook for 3-4 mins while stirring.

5. Add lemon juice and corainder mix it well and serve hot.

Mamra Upma / Murmura Upma/Puffed Rice Upma

Puffed rice also known as Mumra/Murmure in North India and in Kannada we call it Kalle Puri or just Puri. Most commonly used for making Bhelpuri chat and  spicy mumra/puri mix. Kalle puri upittu also known as upma is more popular in north Karnataka. I generally make it for my weekend breakfast its light and easy to make.

This dish was introduced to me by my hubby. 

Ingredients
4-5 cups of puffed rice
1 large onion chopped into small pieces
4-5 green chilies cut into halves
1 tsp urad dal
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
Few curry leaves
Coriander leaves finely chopped
1/2 lemon
3-4 tbsp oil
Salt to taste
Water for soaking puffed rice
Chutney powder (optional)

How I Prepare
1. In a large saute pan, add oil and heat it up. Add mustard seeds, urad dal and saute it until dal is golden brown in color.Add green chilies, curry leaves and onions. Cook it until onion is translucent.
2. While onion is cooking, put the puri in strainer/pasta strainer and run it under the water in your sink. Make sure all the puri are getting soaked in water. If required toss the puri's with your hand couple of times when running under water.
3. Drain the water completely.
4. Add turmeric powder, salt to the onion mix. Lower the flame and add the wet puri's now and mix it nicely.
5. Close the pan lid and allow it to cook for few more minutes.
6. Switch off the stove, squeeze the lemon juice to above mix and chopped coriander leaves and mix it
7. Serve it hot by sprinkling chutney powder. Yum Yum!!!!

Akki Rotti/Rice flour Roti

Akki rotti is a made using rice flour and is served during breakfast or evening snack item. This dish is unique to state of Karnataka. The preparation of akki rotti is similar to ragi rotti which I posted a while back. I use the same technique as ragi rotti,  spreading the dough directly on the cool pan and then cooking the rotti.

Ingredients
2 cups of rice flour
1 large onion finely chopped
3-4 green chilies finely chopped (add more for more spice)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds (jeera)
Few strings of coriander finely chopped
Few curry leaves roughly torn (optional)
Few teaspoon of grated coconut (optional)
Salt as per taste
Oil to spread on rotti
1 cup of Luke warm water

How I Prepare
1. In a bowl add all the above ingredients expect water and oil. Mix everything nicely few times with your hands. This helps in release the onion water and  releasing its flavor in flour.
2. Add water slowly and knead the mix into a dough. The dough should not be too hard.
3. Divide the dough into small portions.
4. Take a pan, spread little oil into it. Place the dough and start spreading into a thin circle.
5. Place the pan on the stove and cook into medium heat.
6. Once one side is little cooked, turn the roti using spatula and cook other side by applying little oil.
7. Once the other side is cooked, spread oil on turn it again. Oil should be applied both the sides
8. Cook the rotti until it turns into light golden brown color.
9. Serve hot with some chutney or pickle. I served with my garlic chutney/curry. It was awesome

Notes
1. You can add few teaspoon of chopped dill leaves known as sabbsige soppu in kannada and Suva in hindi.

Idli/Sambar/Chutney

Idli Ingredients
1. 3 cup rice
2. 1 cup urad dal
3. 1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds (methi)
4. Salt to taste
5. 1/2 cup Mamra(puffed rice) or 1/2 cooked rice.

How I Prepare
1. Soak rice along with fenugreek seeds for 4-5 hours, and urad dal for 1 hour in cold water. The dal should be thoroughly washed.
2. Grind urad dal into smooth paste, by adding little water each time. Make sure paste is not watery. Empty the urad dal paste in a big vessel.
3. Grind rice with puffed rice/cooked rice into a smooth paste. We don't want it to be too coarse.
3a. If you are using puffed rice, soak it in water for 1-2 minutes and add it to rice while grinding it.
  3b. If you are using cooked rice, then add it to the rice while grinding.
4. Empty the grinded rice in the same bowl as urad dal. Add little salt and mix it with hand nicely.
5. Leave the mix for 8-10 hours to ferment
6. Once fermented, Pour the batter into greased idli moulds and steam for 10-12 mins for super soft and spongy idlis.

Tips
1. In US the weather is not same all year around, therefore in the night before sleeping. I preheat my oven to 250F and switch it off and keep the bowl in the oven for whole night with oven light on.

2. If the batter is nicely fermented then you will notice small little bubble in batter. For some reason if it is not fermented enough,  you add little bit of eno before placing the batter in idli mould.

Sambar (My mom method and my all time favorite with Idli) Ingredients

1. 1/2 cup toor dal

2. 1 large onion, 1/2 cut into big chunks for grinding and 1/2  cut into long slices

3. 1 large tomato, 1/2 cut into big chunks for grinding and 1/2 chopped into pieces

4. 1-2 cloves of garlic cut into long slices

5. 1/2 inch ginger cut into big chunks

6.  1 cup of vegetable (Carrot and beans, and add few drumsticks if available)

7.   2 teaspoon of sambar powder

8. 1/2 teaspoon of red chilli powder.

9. 1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder

10. 1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds (jeera)

11. 1 teaspoon tamarind pulp

12. 1 teaspoon of grated coconut

13.  Few curry leaves

14. 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

15. 1 red whole chilli

16. Salt to taste

17. Oil 

18. 1/4 teaspoon of asafoetida (hing)

19. 4-5 cups of water

20. Few strings of coriander

How I Prepare

1. Pressure cook dal with turmeric powder and 2 cups of water.

2. Cook all the vegetables until they are tender. I generally add all of them together and pressure cook for 1 whistle.

3. In pan add little oil, once hot add jeera, garlic cloves, ginger, onions (big chunks) and saute it nicely until the onions are translucent.  Add tomato (big chunks), grated coconut, 1 string of coriander leaf and saute for 1-2 minutes. Let the mixture cool and then grind it into a smooth paste by adding sambar powder, red chilli powder and tamarind pulp.

4. In a pan add oil for tadka, add hing, mustard seeds, curry leaves and whole red chilli and saute. Allow the mustard to splutter. 

5. Add remaining sliced onion and saute it until translucent  Added chopped tomatoes saute it until the tomato are cooked. Add the grinded mix and bring it to boil.

6. Add the above mix to the dal along with cooked vegetable mix and adjust the consistency by adding water. Add salt to taste and boil it nicely. Garnish with coriander.

Chutney Ingredients

1. 2 handful of dalia (Kadale pappu)

2. 1 cup grated coconut

3. 1 garlic clove

4. 1/2 teaspoon tamarind pulp

5. 1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds

6. 5-6 green chilli

7. Few strings of coriander (i take only 4-5 leaves, i don't like the chutney to have more coriander flavour)

8. 1/2 inch of ginger.

9. Little water

10. Salt to taste
11. 1-2 mint leaves (optional)

For tadka

1. 1-2 teaspoon of oil

2. 1/2 teaspoon urad dal

3. 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

4. Few curry leaves

5. 1 whole red chilli

6. 1/4 teaspoon of asafoetida (hing)

How I Prepare

1. In mixer add everything except coconut and water. Grind it for 1-2 minute, then add grated coconut and little water and grind it until you get an even paste.

2. Heat up the oil for tadka, once hot add the hing, mustard seeds, urad dal, curry leaves, cut whole chilli in half and saute until urad dal is golden brown. Switch off the stove and add the tadka to chutney and mix.

Ragi Rotti (Easy way)

Ragi Rotti is a breakfast item in Karnataka and it is quite filling. It is made of ragi (finger millet) flour. It is prepared in the same way as Akki rotti (Rice flour rotti). Ragi flour is easily available in Indian stores over here. Many people have different technique to spread the rotti dough, some spread the rotti over banana leaf, some on plastic cover and some on steel plate. In my house my mom used to spread it on a flat steel plate and then place the steel plate on the hot tava. After few minutes she use to separate the rotti from the plate and drop it on tava and cook it. This method is bit time consuming and there are chances that the rotti might break, if you don't allow it to cook properly on one side before taking it out from plate. Later after marriage I found that my MIL  has a different technique and she followed none of the above methods. She takes the dough spread it directly on the tava (before heating up the tava) and then keep the tava on stove to cook it. It cooks perfectly without any broken piece. I have been using her method every since for both ragi and Akki rotti.

Ingredients
1. 1 1/2 cup ragi flour ( you can make approximately 4-5 rotti)
2. 1/4 cup rice  flour
3. 1 onion medium/big size finely chopped
4. 4-5 green chillies finely chopped (increase/decrease it per your taste)
5. 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds (jeera)
6. Few string of coriander leaves finely chopped
6. Salt to taste
7. Water to mix dough
8. Oil


How I Prepare
1. Add ragi, rice flour in a mixing bowl. Add onion, green chilli, coriander, salt, cumin seeds and mix it nicely by crushing onions with your hands for few minutes. This allows to get more flavour incorporated in the flour.

2. Start adding water little by little and knead it nicely in a dough. The dough should be such that its easy to spread. It should not be too hard.

3. Take a tava spread little oil in it and take small ball size portion of dough and spread it evenly on the tava using your hands.

4. Cook both the sides of rotti by applying little oil. Serve it hot with ghee or any chutney you like. It's best when eaten hot.

Notes
1. Once one rotti is cooked, switch off the stove. Remove the rotti from the tava. Turn the tava such that the bottom side is under the tap. Run it under the water for 1-2 minutes. The tava will become cool to make the next rotti.

2. Alternatively if you have two tava, you can allow the tava to cool naturally and make the next rotti on a different tava.