Roti Upma aka Fried Bread Curry ~ a Delicious Surprise!
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I have just eaten A Very Interesting Thing which was also quick, cheap, delicious and used leftovers – fried bread curry also known as Roti Upma!
Upma is a South Indian porridgy dish usually made with semolina but also with lots of other things that will mush down such as rice or bread. I don’t like porridgy things so have never tried it and didn’t feel I could rightfully include the fried bread curry in the bread section of my book Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers.
Recently however I have noticed a few fried bread recipes using dried or fried bread which retains quite a bit of crispness so decided to give it a go.
Roti Upma
A slightly inauthentic recipe as I didn’t have all the right ingredients but it was delicious!
½ tablebspoon vegetable oil or ghee – and another one!
1-2 slices bread – stale is good – diced or torn into pieces
(for me a small slice of sourdough and ½ an old roll I found in the freezer!)
¼ tsp mustard seeds
1 hot red chilli chopped
(I keep a bag in the freezer, they are easily chopped from frozen)
½ onion finely chopped
¼ inch ginger finely chopped
1 pinch turmeric
(I am ashamed to say I had no fresh ginger or turmeric so replaced these with a ¼ tsp curry paste which worked very well)
5 or so cherry tomatoes, quartered
a handful of cashew nuts
fresh coriander, chopped plus a sprig or two to garnish
~
Heat ½ tbsp oil in a frying pan then fry the bread in it till turning
crisp and golden. Set aside.
~ Add the second ½ tbsp oil to the pan
and then the mustard seeds and wait till they start popping.
~ Stir in the onion (and the ginger if
you’ve got some) and cook till starting to go translucent then add the chilli
and the tomatoes.
~ When the tomatoes start to mush down
stir in the turmeric and/or curry paste and cook together a minute or so.
~ Taste and season then stir in the
bread, cashews and chopped coriander.
I stopped at this point because I don’t like pappy meals but you could cook the mixture down a bit and maybe add a little hot water to achieve a more porridge-like consistency. As I say, it was great and next time I feel I have been eating too healthily I intend to balance things up by making it again!
More Ideas for Leftover Bread
This is not the only Very Interesting Thing I have made with bread – here are six more Deliciously Different Ideas for Leftover Bread.
Suzy Bowler
Having been a somewhat itinerant chef for over 30 years I was amazed, on my return to the UK, at the blatant food waste that now seems to be rife in the country; amazed and irritated. So much so that I decided to start a blog about spontaneous cooking from leftovers to show people that there are great alternatives to throwing food away.
