Quick uttapam
- Published: 19 Aug 21
- Updated: 25 Mar 24
Chetna Makan shares her quick and easy uttapam recipe. These fluffy pancakes from South India are made with rice and topped with tomato, chilli and herbs.
Recipe taken from Chetna’s 30-Minute Indian (£20, Mitchell Beazley), out now.
Ingredients
- 75g poha (flattened rice; see Know How)
- 75g fine semolina
- 110ml natural yogurt
- ½ tsp salt
- Sunflower oil for cooking
For the topping
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1 tomato, finely chopped
- 1 green chilli, finely chopped
- Good pinch chilli powder
- Handful fresh coriander leaves, finely chopped
You’ll also need
- Blender or food processor
Method
- Soak the poha in 200ml water for 5 minutes until softened. Meanwhile, mix together all the topping ingredients.
- Drain the soaked poha, put into a blender with the semolina, yogurt and salt and whizz to a smooth batter.
- Heat a frying pan over a medium heat, add a few drops of oil, then wipe out the pan. Add a ladleful of batter to the pan and use the base of the ladle to spread it into a 13cm circle. Top with one sixth of the topping mixture, then drizzle ½ tsp oil around the edges of the uttapam. Cook for about 2 minutes, then flip and cook for another 2 minutes until golden. Remove from the pan and repeat with the remaining batter and topping mixture. Serve warm.
- Recipe from August 2021 Issue
Nutrition
- Calories
- 122kcals
- Fat
- 4.6g (0.8g saturated)
- Protein
- 3.3g
- Carbohydrates
- 16.2g (3.4g sugars)
- Fibre
- 1.3g
- Salt
- 0.5g
delicious. tips
Scale it up Double the quantities to serve a larger (or hungrier!) crowd.
Mix the topping ingredients (except the coriander) up to 1 day ahead. Store covered in the fridge and stir in the coriander when ready to assemble.
Poha (or powa) are flattened rice flakes made by parboiling and rolling rice grains. Poha comes in a variety of thicknesses – for uttapam, look for a very thin variety for the speediest soaking time.
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Even my local big Sainsbury’s didn’t have poha, but I managed to find flattened rice in their ‘free from’ section offered a porridge alternative. It was still just 100% flattened rice, but might not have been as thin or workable as the recipe tip suggests.
As such, I think my batter was a lot thicker than it should have been (not a pourable consistency and broke when I tried to spread in the pan), so I think the flakes should maybe have been soaked longer or me use more yoghurt. Similarly I think that made it hard to flip and definitely not as dark or as thin as pictured. It was pretty tasty and easy to make otherwise though, and the toppings made it taste really fresh.
Hi Olly! We’re glad this was a tasty recipe. If you wanted to make it again it’s possible to find poha flakes online at Veenas. Happy cooking!