Few months ago, I had invited some of my friends for dinner at home. Like always, they insisted on having a potluck so that I don’t have to cook so much. One friend said she will bring rava khichdi. The name itself brought back so many memories. I could almost taste it. She didn’t know I was looking forward to it and she brought something else that day. Usually I don’t say anything, but that day I shamelessly told her I was really looking forward to eating rava khichdi and she needs to make it for me. Poor girl, she felt so guilty, she made a huge batch of rava khichdi and mint chutney next day and brought it to my home!. Oh it was so good, just like I wanted. I ate that for 3 days(yes, she had brought a lot!) and the best part was even V and Ishaan loved it. Ever since then, I have prepared this couple of times and every time I fall in love with it a little more. I feel it is a fancy name to a vegetable upma, but it is so much more flavorful especially when served with chutney.
Ingredients:
1 and 1/2 cups rava/sooji
1/2 cup onion
1 and 1/2 cup vegetables – green beans, capsicum (bellpepper), green peas, carrot
1 tea spn chana dal
1 tea spn mustard seeds
1 tea spn urad dal
3 green chillies
1 tbl spn chopped(or grated) ginger
1 tbl spn lemon juice (optional)
4-5 curry leaves
A pinch turmeric
Oil
Salt
Method:
Dry roast rava till a nice aroma comes out and keep it aside.
Heat oil (use a little more oil than you would normally add for upma) and add chana dal, urad dal, mustard seeds. When mustard starts popping, add curry leaves, ginger, green chillies.
Fry for a minute and then add onions, turmeric. When they turn translucent, add all the vegetables and mix everything well. Fry for a minute, add about 1/2 cup water and cover the lid, let the vegetables cook.
When they are almost half done, add rava, about 2 cups water, salt. If needed add more water. When all the water is absorbed and rava is cooked, sprinkle lemon juice and mix everything well. Serve hot with mint chutney.
Mint Chutney : Grind together
A big bunch(about 1 cup) of coriander leaves along with stems
1/4 cup mint leaves
2 green chillies
1 tea spn cumin seeds
1 tbl spn lemon juice
1 garlic clove
3-4 curry leaves (optional)
1 tbl spn fresh/frozen coconut
Salt
Serves : 3-4
Preparation time : 30mins
How is this different from upma?
Please check my reply to Nupur below
Also also Capsicum and Turmeric which we normally do not add to Upama.
That does look so comforting and delicious! I think of this as upma rather than khichdi- one dish, many names I guess.
Agree with you Nupur. In Bangalore we used to get Kharabath and in Chennai I have tasted rava khichdi. They are both variations of upma/uppittu in my opinion. For me, upma is more drier version and has less things in seasoning.
This looks like a great idea for breakfast!! I have a mint plant at home, so I think I’ll certainly try this out!
We call it vegetable upma!
So many delicious recipes here…
Thank you, Shilpa…. finally something different in my kids lunch box other than variety rice.
This seems really interesting, would love to try this type of khichdi.
Name sounded interesting but we make upma just like this, there is nothing different.You already have upma on your website which is almost similar too. My guess is either you are having cravings 😉 😉 or running out of new dishes to post!!!! Hope it’s not the latter!!
Anita, I would suggest trying both recipes and see for yourself if they taste different. For me, they were different and I wanted to document both
Shilpa,
Anita was right. This was your craving for upma.. 🙂
Well I was fan of this dish from college days. Not so much of upma. Just like there are many different rice based pulavs based on ingredients, I feel there are different dishes with sooji. For me khara bhath, upma, rava kgichdi have their distinct tastes. For some they all may be same!! Individual choices. I don’ agree with craving theory