First, a word on this dish
Start with the same fermented batter you would use for dosa, then do almost everything differently. Dosa is spread thin and cooked on a hot surface until it shatters. Uttapam is poured thick, left mostly untouched, and topped with chopped vegetables you press into the surface so they cook into the pancake. What you get is soft and slightly springy inside, like a savoury pancake, with a crisp, browned base where it met the pan.
If dosa has defeated you before, try uttapam. Because it is thicker and cooks more slowly, you do not need the single smooth sweep of the ladle that trips up so many first attempts. It is also a good home for batter that has fermented a little longer than you would like for dosa, as a slightly sourer, bubblier batter suits uttapam's softness well.
The story behind the dish
Uttapam belongs to the same South Indian fermented-batter family as dosa and idli, and like them it has no single recorded place of birth. Grinding and fermenting rice with urad dal and cooking it on a hot griddle developed over a long time across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, with each region keeping its own proportions and style. The thicker, vegetable-topped uttapam, as opposed to thin dosa, is mostly linked to Tamil Nadu and to the Udupi-style restaurants that carried South Indian tiffin to the rest of India from the middle of the twentieth century. Home versions with local vegetable mixes existed before that and still sit alongside it. Giving it to one state alone would be misleading. It is better described as a thicker regional take within a shared repertoire, spread across the country mainly through South Indian restaurants and tiffin centres.
The method, in order
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Prep
Soak, grind and ferment
Soak rice in one bowl and urad dal with the fenugreek in another, each for 4 to 6 hours. Grind them separately into smooth, thick batters, stir them together with the salt in a big container, and leave it somewhere warm for 8 to 12 hours until it has about doubled, looks airy and smells pleasantly sour. It is the same batter as for dosa and idli. For uttapam, only the pouring is different.
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Prep
Chop small and blot the wet bits
Cut the onion, tomato, capsicum, chillies and carrot small and even. Large or uneven pieces cook at different speeds once pressed into the batter. If the tomato is very juicy, press the chopped pieces lightly with a paper towel, because extra liquid keeps the batter underneath from setting.
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Prep
Look at the batter's thickness
You want it a touch thicker than dosa batter but still pourable, more like thick pancake batter. If your batter has thinned out after sitting, resist adding water as you might for dosa. Use it at the thickness it naturally has after fermenting.
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Cook
Warm the griddle over medium heat
Heat the griddle to medium, a notch below the medium-high you would use for dosa. Uttapam wants gentler, longer heat so the thick middle cooks before the base burns. Wipe the surface with a little oil.
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Cook
Pour thick and leave it alone
Pour a ladleful into the centre of the griddle and nudge it outward only a little, to a round about half a centimetre thick, much thicker than dosa. Do not aim for a thin, even spiral. A slightly uneven, pancake-like disc is right.
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Cook
Scatter on the vegetables and press
Do this while the batter is still wet on top. Scatter a small handful of onion, tomato, chilli and whatever else you are using across the surface, and press down firmly but evenly with the underside of the ladle or a flat spatula, so the pieces sink in and do not slide off.
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Cook
Add oil and cook slowly
Trickle oil or ghee around the rim and across the toppings. Put a lid on if one fits, and let it cook over medium heat for 3 to 4 minutes. It is ready to turn when the base has gone deep golden and the top has set and looks matt, not wet.
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Cook
Flip once and finish the topped side
Slide a wide spatula under the uttapam and flip it once. Give the vegetable side only 1 to 2 minutes, just until the vegetables soften and colour a little. This side needs far less time than the first.
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Serve
Serve hot with chutney and sambar
Slide it onto a plate, vegetables facing up, and bring it out with coconut chutney and sambar. Thickness helps uttapam stay soft a bit longer than dosa, yet it still tastes best straight from the pan.
Ingredient stand-ins
Plenty of vegetables suit the top. Home cooks often reach for grated cabbage, chopped spinach or sweet corn in place of the classic onion, tomato and chilli. If fermenting is not for you, packaged dosa or idli batter, chilled or frozen, behaves identically; use it at its slightly thicker natural consistency. Grated cheese pressed in next to the vegetables is a modern restaurant habit, not a traditional one.
Making it milder or fiercer
The batter holds no heat, so everything comes from the toppings. For a milder pancake, leave out the green chilli and rely on onion, tomato and coriander. For more heat, add more chopped green chilli, or sprinkle red chilli powder or crushed black pepper over the vegetables just before you press them in, so the heat sits at the surface and does not disappear into the batter. Serving a bowl of chopped green chilli on the table is another easy way to let each person decide.
The slip most cooks make
Thin batter is the usual slip. Spread like dosa, it leaves nothing for the vegetables to settle into, and you get a dosa with toppings in place of uttapam. Heat that is too high comes next, because the base darkens while the thick middle is still raw. Toppings matter as well: big pieces fall off at the flip, and wet tomato leaves the surrounding batter gummy. And if you skip the lid on the first side, the middle takes longer to set while the top dries out. If your first uttapam falls apart when you flip it, the cause is usually impatience: wait until the top has stopped looking wet before you slide the spatula under.
Storing what is left
Fridge or counter: Fermented batter stays good 3 to 4 days chilled, and freezes for up to a month. Let it return to room temperature and stir it well, because it thickens in the fridge. Prepare toppings fresh if you can. Onion and capsicum may be chopped a day early and kept in a sealed box, but cut the tomato at the last minute since it releases juice. Cooked uttapam is not worth keeping; make it fresh. If you freeze the batter in small tubs, you can thaw just enough for a single breakfast.
Bringing it back to life: Put a leftover uttapam in a dry pan over medium-low heat, one to two minutes on each side. The base crisps up again and the centre does not dry out, which a microwave cannot offer, since it leaves the pancake soft and rubbery. For more than one, reheat them one after another and avoid stacking, as warm stacked pancakes steam and soften each other.
Handle with care
Like any fermented batter, this should go into the refrigerator once it has finished fermenting and not stay at room temperature for long, particularly in hot weather, where it can slip from pleasantly sour to over-fermented and, eventually, unsafe. Wash the vegetables well before chopping, and if you prepare toppings ahead, keep them covered in the fridge, especially tomato and onion, which can harbour bacteria when left out for long stretches. At the stove, use fresh oil on the griddle and do not let it scorch and darken through a long session, since oil heated repeatedly tastes bitter and is less healthy to eat often.