319) UNDI

UNDI

A HEARTY, TASTY, TRADITIONAL KONKANI RICE DUMPLING

A FILLING BREAKFAST DISH

Ingredients (to make 25 to 27 small undis):

     1)    Raw rice – 1 kg. (see note)

     2)    Grated coconut – 200 gm.

     3)    Coconut oil – 2 teaspoons

     4)    Mustard seeds – 5 gm. (1 teaspoons)

     5)    Fenugreek seeds – 1 gm. (¼ teaspoon)

     6)    Urud dal (split black gram lentils) – 10 gm. (2 teaspoon)

     7)    Salt – 7 gm. (1¼ teaspoons)

     8)    Water – 500 ml.

To prepare:

          Soak the rice for an hour. Rinse well and drain. Transfer to a food processor in two or three portions together with the grated coconut and grind to paste (Traditionally, it is made into a rough paste, but my family loves a fines texture to the undi, so I grind it to fine paste, Try both on different occasions). Take care to use up only 500 ml. of water for the entire grinding process. Transfer to a mixing bowl, tip in the salt and mix thoroughly.

To cook:

          Set a deep, wide non-stick wok or pan on high heat. Pour in the coconut oil and throw in the mustard seeds. As soon as the mustard seeds are about to finish bursting, tip in the fenugreek seeds and the urud dal. Stir till the urud turns a light brown in color. Now, pour in the rice paste. Stir continuously for 2½ minutes.

          The paste will turn lumpy. Now lower the heat and continue to stir for another 5½ minutes. The paste would have thickened like chappathi dough by now. Switch off the heat.

As soon as the dough is cool enough to touch, make several small balls of the shape of your choice (some make round undis whereas others make long, oval undis). Transfer them to a steamer and set on high heat.

Once the steamer starts to whistle, continue to cook on high heat for 16 minutes. Your delicious undis should have cooked to perfection by now. Open the lid and push in the tip of a knife to check an undi. If well cooked, the knife will come out clean. If not, steam on for a few more minutes.

Serve hot with Konkani cut mango pickle or bimbla nonché or with tender mango pickle. You can also serve with hot veg curries like dali toye, ghashis, bendis or with hot fish curries like raja kholu, niliyé kholu, fish phanna upkari or with chili prawn fry.

Note:

Undis are also made using parboiled rice. In that case, the rice needs to be soaked for 6 hours before grinding and the paste has to be rough because the undi made using parboiled rice is softer. Some people make undis using a mixture (50:50) of raw rice and parboiled rice. Here too, the rice mix requires a 6 hour soaking period.