Uttapam Pizza (By Aarti Mehrotra Mataney)

If you have a school going child you know the lunchbox struggle is real. If constantly racking one’s brain to come up with healthy, wholesome meals is not enough, making them easy to eat and create a variety make lunchbox menu planning a herculean task to say the least. And it doesn’t help if you have a picky eater either. When my eldest started primary earlier this school year, anxious doesn’t even begin to describe my feelings every evening at the thought of packing lunch for him the next morning. A few weeks into school, my list was soon exhausted and then began the search to find newer ideas which His Highness would eat. Online search helped but the best ideas came from my Mummy friends who had at least a few tried and tested, “picky-eater friendly” recipes in their kitty. And this recipe barter did make my life much easier.

Hence, sharing one of those recipes here in my Guest Blog section seemed like a great idea .

The contributor is my dear friend Aarti who is a mum of a an incredibly intuitive 5yo and an HR professional, event organiser and a crusader. Positive, calm and humble are just a few words that describe this sweet friend of mine.

As to the recipe, as you may have guessed, it is a fusion between our desi Uttapam and videsi Pizza. The base is made with the traditional uttapam batter, keeping it healthy and gluten-free and topped with veggies of your choice and loads of mozzarella. Comes together in less than 15 minutes and tastes great piping hot or even cold!The recipe comes with a basic tomato sauce recipe too but you can always use store bought-tastes as delicious!

It was fun trying this pizza out in different shapes and as expected the heart-shaped ones went down really well 🙂

Thank you Aarti for sharing this keeper of a recipe.

And I am sure you guys and your wee ones would love it as much as we did!

Start off by preparing the basic tomato sauce by boiling finely chopped tomatoes with sugar (I used chopped jaggery for an added flavour).Cover and cook on a medium flame with intermittent stirring till soft and mushy, then add a pinch of salt and oregano and bring to boil. Then reduce flame to medium and thicken to a semisolid consistency with continuous stirring . Keep aside until cool. The sauce keeps well in an air tight glass jar up to a week if refrigerated, so you can make it in advance.

Here is an ultimate guide to making the perfect (multipurpose) batter for dosas and uttapams. Once you have the perfect batter, making your Uttapam Pizza is easy-peasy.

Another important tip is to grate your veggies (carrots, beetroots, red, green, yellow bell peppers work great) coarse and use freshly grated mozzarella. Believe me it makes all the difference. And speaking of latter, my loyalties lie with the one Marks and Spencers stores. The cheesiest mozzarella ever. It usually comes in slices but you can scrunch and grate it with perfect results.

[kkstarratings]