Upma is a savoury dish using grains/seeds, veggies and spices. It is served as breakfast, snack or a side dish. You can use rice, rice flakes, millet or quinoa. This dish is packed with essential nutrition such as carbohydrates, protein, good fats, vitamins and minerals.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
2 cups organic uncooked quinoa
3 Tbsp organic coconut oil or ghee
2 cups grated carrots
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp yellow mustard seeds
2 tsp urad dal
2 green chillies
3 cm ginger
1/8 tsp asafoetida
20 curry leaves
1 cup chopped leek
1 cup peas
1/2 cup of roasted salted cashews
3 cups filtered boiling water
Cilantro and lemon juice for garnish
Instructions:
Wash quinoa several times and soak quinoa in clean water for a couple of hours or overnight. Rinse, drain and set aside.
In a medium pot over medium heat add quinoa, grated carrots, salt, and boiling water. Stir and cover, allow to cook until water is evaporated, takes about 15 min. Then fluff quinoa and cover again until spices are ready to be added to quinoa.
Place chopped ginger and chili (make sure to remove seeds from chilli) to a mortar and pestle and make a paste.
In a medium skillet, add oil or ghee at medium heat. When oil is hot add mustard seeds and urad dal and let them sputter or sizzle for a few seconds until urad dal is golden. Then add ginger/chili paste, leek and cook until leek is soft. Then add asafoetida, curry leaves and cook for a minute or less.
Add spice mixture to cooked quinoa, then add peas, cashews and stir everything until spices are well mixed into the quinoa. Drizzle lemon juice and stir. Serve with cilantro and extra lemon wedge on top.
Enjoy 🙂
Recipe by Debora Galvin