Skip to main content

Upma 'Polenta' Cakes with Mushroom Sauce


I seem to be getting quite a flair for competitions this year. First there was Kitchenaid Probaker. And then, a couple of months back, I saw this Facebook post for a contest that Lufthansa was running, called Cook and Fly. Since all you needed to do was send in an Indian inspired main course dish that could potentially go on the Lufthansa in-flight menu, I send out several entries from the blog's archives. Then, with just a day to go for the contest, I created a new dish - the one you see above. As luck would have it, this dish went on to win the 'dish of the week' contest for the last week and then got picked as the top 8 entry for the finals.

The finals at The Leela in Gurgaon were pretty much like the masterchef. We had an hour to recreate the same dish that we sent from home. When I got there in the morning of the contest, the folks at Leela had already prepped and laid out all the ingredients so all we had to do was cook. And pose for interviews and stuff. Did I say this is going to be a show on NDTV Good Times. Super exciting stuff all the way.

But the most exciting thing to me in the whole process is this recipe. It's a dish I've made four times since I sent the first entry in. And I really enjoy eating it so I hope you do too.

Ingredients

For Upma
1/2 cup sooji
3/4 cup coconut milk
3 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
salt

For mushroom sauce
10-12 mushrooms
3 garlic cloves
1 inch piece of ginger
1 tbsp oil
1/2 cup coconut milk
5-6 basil leaves
salt and fresh ground black pepper

4-6 hours before you want to eat this, make your upma. Take 1/2 cup sooji and dry roast in a pan for about 10 minutes until it is lightly browned. My mum always tested the sooji is roasted enough by going into the next room - if you can smell toasty cereal, it's done. Remove the sooji to a bowl. In the same pan, heat 1/2 tbsp oil. Add 1 tsp cumin seeds and 1 tsp mustard seeds and let cook for a couple of minutes until they start to splutter. Add the roasted sooji. Mix 3/4 cup coconut milk with 3/4 cup water and add the liquid to the pan, stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Add salt and keep stirring until your upma is like a thick porridge. Immediately spread in a thin layer on a small baking sheet, making it as smooth as possible. Let cool, then cover and put it in the fridge for 4-6 hours.

When you are ready to cook the cakes, take the pan out of fridge and cut the upma into squares. You can also use a cookie cutter to make round cakes. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a nonstick frying pan. Shallow fry the cakes 2-3 at a time, making sure not to crowd the pan so you have room to turn the cakes (they will get quite soft as they cook). Make sure the cakes are lightly browned on both sides.

To make the curry to go with the upma cakes, wash and thinly slice 10-12 mushrooms. Finely chop 3 garlic cloves and a 1 inch piece of ginger. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan. Add the ginger and garlic and stir fry until it gets golden brown. Add mushrooms and stir fry for 5-6 minutes. The mushrooms will exude water as they cook so let most of the water dry up before you add 1/2 cup coconut milk. Also add salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste and let the sauce cook until the gravy is a bit thick. Turn off the heat and add 4-5 basil leaves, chopped into thin slivers. Pour the sauce over the upma cakes and garnish with basil.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kadhi Chawal

I just can't think of what to write today. That's what my absolute favorite meal does to me, I just want to stop talking and dig right in. So I won't ramble and go straight on the recipe for kadhi. First, make the pakoras that would go in the kadhi. Slice an onion lengthwise. Make a batter with 1/2 cup chickpea flour (besan), salt, red chilli powder and water. Dip onions in this batter and deep fry until crisp. Keep aside. Now blend 1 cup yogurt and 1/3 cup besan into a paste. Add 3-4 cups water to make a very thin blend. Heat a tbsp of oil in a pan. Add a tsp each of mustard seeds, cumin seeds, ajwain (carom seeds) and methre (fenugreek seeds). Let splutter for a few seconds. Now add a large onion, cut lengthwise into thin slices and cook until browned lightly. Pour in the yogurt/besan mix and add 1 tsp turmeric powder, 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp red chilli powder. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and let simmer for at least half an hour. You have to stir this occasio...
17 comments
Read more

Potato Naan

I know what you see up there is a naan. But let's pretend for a moment we are making bread. For I had bookmarked this recipe for potato bread a zillion years ago. And that's what I set to make. Chopped and boiled 100 gms potatoes until they are soft. Mashed them along with 3/4 cup of water they were boiled in. While the potatoes were boiling, I added a tsp of sugar to 1/4 cup warm water, then sprinkled a tsp of yeast and let it proof for 10 minutes. To the potato/water mix, I added a cup each of whole wheat flour and plain flour, 1/2 tsp salt as well as the yeast. Once everything was mixed well, I put the dough on a flour-dusted surface and kneaded it for 10 minutes or so. It was a fairly wet dough, but got it to get smooth. Oiled a large bowl and put the dough in it to rise to double it's size. By the time the first rise ended after an hour or so, I didn't want the bread. I wanted a naan instead. And if someone deserves to throw a tantrum after days of sniv...
16 comments
Read more

Dukkah

Talk about myths busted. I went to Dubai planning to buy zat'ar, the fragrant herb and spice mix. And Dukkah, the interesting blend of nuts and spices. Not sumac, because I still have a pack left in my fridge. So zat'ar was easy - every Carrefour supermarket had that one. But no one had dukkah and I was like, how can they not have dukkah? It's a middle eastern thing, right! But well, they don't sell dukkah in Dubai, so I came back and armed with recipes from 10-odd blogs (all roughly the same), I set to make my own. The key to making dukkah is : line up all your ingredients, toast each of them separately in a heavy non-stick pan till they are fragrant and lightly roasted, then put everything in a blender and grind coarsely. This is your dukkah. Now dip your bread in olive oil, then dip it in dukkah and indulge. A final word of warning: this can be highly addictive. And finally, my list of ingredients: 1/4 cup almonds 2 tbsp coriander seeds 1 1/2 tbsp sesame...
14 comments
Read more