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Indian breakfast
By Carrie | January 17, 2008
On our trip to India, we became very familiar with the South Indian breakfast. In the US, you can get these foods at Indian restaurants but, since the restaurants are not open for breakfast in the US, we’ve only had them as a lunch or dinner item in the past. It was a little strange to eat these savory foods early in the morning, but when your belly is grumbling it hits the spot.
The most common breakfast item you’ll see in South India is idli. It’s kind of hard to describe - it’s basically a flavorless steamed cake that’s made out of rice. You commonly eat idli with sambar (a spicy soup) and coconut chutney. Idlis are on every hotel breakfast buffet. Needless to say, we got a tad idli-ed out by the end of the trip. At the beginning of our trip, Oak bought one of the special idli steaming racks (as shown on the wikipedia page) but I’m sure it will be some time before we make idlis at home again! haha. 
India also has their own version of pancakes - dosa and uththaapam. Dosa are almost like a crispy french crepe. They can be filled with all sorts of things, most commonly vegetables or paneer, which is Indian cheese. I enjoy the potato masala dosa - masala-spiced boiled potatoes are put inside of the crepe. Uththamaapam are more like the pancakes we’re used to, but again they are savory. Usually tomatoes, onions, and other veggies are mixed into the batter before they cook them. Dosa and uththaapam are served with the same sambar and coconut chutney that you eat with the idlis. Because they’re a little more labor intensive than idli, we mostly ate dosa and uththaapam at restaurants.
Breakfast items that we’re used to that are common in India are omlettes, corn flakes, toast and jam, fruit juices, tea, and coffee. You’ll rarely (or never) see breakfast meats (sausage, bacon, ham), thick oatmeal, the sweet pancakes we’re used to, biscuits, or hash browns. Because of our western breakfast withdrawal, we’ve already devoured a bacon egg and cheese sandwich in NY and a Bojangles breakfast in NC. 
Topics: india |
January 18th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Uththamaapam — I was thinking it was an onomotopoeia until I finished reading the sentence and realized it’s the name of a pancake! What interesting food discoveries you made!! Can’t wait to hear about the rest of them!!
January 18th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Hello Carrie and Oak…Its Heidi (remember me from dinner in NY?) Anyway, I’ve been checking your site, waiting to hear of adventures in India. Glad you had a good time. Can’t wait to see photos!
January 23rd, 2008 at 7:16 am
The food was amazing. Sadly so many places would unprepared to make uththaapam and dosas. Both uththaapam and dosas required the batter be fermented overnight so we were left to consume idilis.
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:58 am
wow nice web site iam impressed
June 30th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
[…] there. haha. This was near the end of our trip, so in many ways we were getting tired of thalis and idli and were ready to have some good ‘ol American junk […]