Before You Start
Uttapam is made from exactly the same fermented rice and urad dal batter as dosa, yet you cook it in nearly the opposite way. A dosa is spread thin and cooked on high heat until it turns brittle. Uttapam batter goes down thick and is largely left alone, with chopped vegetables pressed into the top so that they cook into the pancake and don't just sit on it. The result is soft and a little spongy inside, much like a savoury pancake, with a lightly crisp, caramelised base where it touched the pan.
Because it is thick and cooked more slowly, uttapam is kinder to beginners than dosa. You don't need the single, continuous spreading motion that catches so many people out on a first dosa. It is also a good home for batter that has fermented longer than you would want for crisp dosa, since a more sour, bubblier batter suits uttapam's soft texture well.
Where This Dish Comes From
Uttapam belongs to the South Indian tradition of fermented batters, the same family as dosa and idli, and like them it has no single documented starting point. Across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, cooks over a long period learned to ferment ground rice with urad dal and cook it on a hot griddle, and each region kept its own proportions and style. Uttapam proper, the thicker, vegetable-topped sibling of thin dosa, is most often associated with Tamil Nadu and with the Udupi-style restaurants that carried South Indian tiffin dishes around India from the middle of the twentieth century. Home versions with local vegetable combinations existed before that restaurant standardisation and still exist beside it. Crediting one state alone would be inaccurate. It is better thought of as a thicker regional variant within the shared South Indian batter repertoire, carried across the country mainly by South Indian restaurants and tiffin centres.
Step by Step
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Prep
Soak, grind and ferment the batter
Soak the rice and the urad dal separately for 4 to 6 hours, adding the fenugreek seeds to the dal. Grind each to a smooth, thick paste, then combine them with the salt in a large container. Leave the batter somewhere warm for 8 to 12 hours, until it has roughly doubled, looks airy and smells pleasantly sour. This is the same batter you would use for dosa and idli. Uttapam asks nothing special of the fermentation, only that you pour it thicker.
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Prep
Chop the toppings small and blot the wet ones
Cut the onion, tomato, capsicum, chillies and carrot small and even, because uneven pieces cook unevenly once they are pressed into the batter. Should your tomato be very juicy, blot the chopped pieces lightly with a paper towel. Extra liquid prevents the batter around it from setting properly.
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Prep
Judge the batter's thickness
You want uttapam batter a little thicker than dosa batter but still pourable, closer to a thick pancake batter. When your fermented batter has thinned out while sitting, resist thinning it further with water as you might for dosa. Use it close to its natural fermented thickness.
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Cook
Warm the griddle to medium
Set the griddle over medium heat, not the medium-high you would use for dosa. A gentler, longer heat gives the thick centre time to cook through before the base burns. Wipe the surface lightly with oil.
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Cook
Pour a thick round and leave it alone
Ladle batter onto the middle of the griddle and nudge it outward just a little, forming a circle roughly half a centimetre thick, which is clearly thicker than a dosa. There is no need for a neat, thin spiral here; a slightly uneven, pancake-like round is exactly what you want.
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Cook
Scatter the vegetables and press them in
While the surface is still wet, sprinkle a small handful of chopped onion, tomato, chilli and any other vegetables evenly across the top. Then press lightly and evenly with the back of the ladle or a flat spatula, so they settle into the batter and don't sit loose.
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Cook
Add oil and cook slowly
Drizzle oil or ghee around the rim and over the vegetables. If you have a lid that fits, cover the pan. Cook over medium heat for 3 to 4 minutes, until the underside is a deep golden and the top has set and lost its raw, wet shine.
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Cook
Turn it once, briefly
Slide a wide spatula under the uttapam and turn it over with care, then let the vegetable side cook for 1 to 2 minutes more, only until the vegetables soften a little and pick up some colour. This second side needs far less time than the first.
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Serve
Serve hot with chutney and sambar
Bring it to the table straight away, vegetable side up, with coconut chutney and sambar. Its thickness helps uttapam hold its texture a little longer than dosa, but it still tastes best hot and shouldn't be left sitting.
Swaps That Work
Nearly any finely chopped vegetable will do on top. Grated cabbage, chopped spinach and sweet corn are popular home alternatives to the classic onion, tomato and chilli blend. If you'd rather skip fermenting at home, ready-made dosa or idli batter, sold fresh or frozen at Indian grocery stores, behaves the same way for uttapam, as long as you use it at its natural, slightly thicker consistency. Pressing a little grated cheese in with the vegetables isn't traditional, though some modern restaurants do it.
Turning the Heat Up or Down
The batter carries no heat, so the topping sets the spice level entirely. To keep it mild, leave out the green chilli and let onion, tomato and coriander supply the flavour. To turn it up, use more chopped green chilli, or dust a little red chilli powder or crushed black pepper over the vegetables just before you press them down. That puts the heat at the surface instead of burying it in the batter.
Where Cooks Often Slip
The commonest problem is pouring the batter as thin as dosa. The vegetables then have nothing to sink into, and you end up with a vegetable-topped dosa instead of a real uttapam. Another is a pan or oil that is too hot, which browns the base before the thick middle has cooked, leaving a doughy centre under a dark crust. Vegetables that are cut too big or are too wet cause trouble too: big pieces drop off when you flip, and wet ones, tomato above all, leave the surrounding batter gummy. And leaving off the lid on the first side lengthens the time the middle needs to set and needlessly dries the top.
Keeping and Warming Up Leftovers
To keep it: Fermented batter stays good in the fridge for 3 to 4 days, and you can freeze it for up to a month. Bring it back to room temperature and stir well before use, since it thickens in the cold. Toppings are best chopped fresh, although onion and capsicum can be cut a day ahead and kept in a sealed container in the refrigerator. Leave the tomato until just before cooking, as it releases liquid while it waits. Cooked uttapam doesn't keep well, so make it fresh.
To warm it up: A dry pan over medium-low heat, with a minute or two per side, brings leftover uttapam back reasonably well and returns some crispness to the base without drying the centre too much. That beats the microwave, which makes it soft and slightly rubbery. When warming several, work through them one at a time in the same pan instead of stacking, because warm uttapams piled together trap steam and soften each other.
Kitchen Safety Note
Treat this like any fermented batter and refrigerate it once fermentation is finished, rather than leaving it out indefinitely. In warm weather, continued fermentation can slide from pleasantly sour to over-fermented and finally unsafe. Wash all the vegetables for the topping well before chopping them, and if you prepare them ahead, keep them covered in the refrigerator, particularly chopped tomato and onion, which can harbour bacteria if left on the counter for long. At the stove, replace the griddle oil when it begins to scorch and darken over a long session, because oil that has been overheated again and again tastes bitter and is less healthy to eat regularly.