Upama

It is difficult to resist the quick fix snacks and meals especially when your living by yourself. But if you are health conscious you might not want to resort to the two-minute noodles or the frozen meals for long. So to our rescue is the Indian cuisine that offers a range of quick hot meal options.

We shall go into all of those as we go along the way. Today I shall being with one of my favorites, Upama. This dish is made of 'rava' or 'soji' which itself offers you three to four different dishes that take no more than a maximum of 30 minutes. While Upama can be made in various ways I shall give you the typical Marathi version.

Ingredients

• 1 cup rava/soji
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 medium sized onion
• 1 small tomato
• 3 tablespoons ghee/oil
• 2-3 chopped green chilies
• 1/5 cup green peas
• Approx. 1 inch finely cut ginger
• 1 table spoon udad dal
• 4-5 curry leaves
• Coriander to garnish
• Lemon to taste

Method

Heat one tablespoon of ghee/oil in a skillet. Add rava to it and fry on low flame until it is a very light brown. This stage is very important as a rightly fried rava sets the stage for a delicious and 'khamanga' Upama. Apparently it also reduces the chances of acidity after eating if you are prone to acidity caused by rava.

Once it is light brown set aside the rava and heat 2 tablespoons of ghee/oil in a skillet. Add chillies, ginger, curry leaves, udad dal and jeera to it. The add the chopped onion and fry till it is a light pink and seems transparent. Now add the chopped tomato and let it cook for a minute. Do not overcook the tomatoes as it would tun into a paste and give the dish a red color. We want to see tomato pieces at the end.

Now it is time to add the water and milk to the skillet. Some use only water, but I like to use some milk to give it that rich texture. Add salt to taste. It is better to add salt at this stage so that it mixes well. Once the mixture is about to boil add the peas. As peas are very easy to cook adding them at such a late stage helps them stay green. When the mixture starts boiling add the rava and stir such that no lumps remain. You should be very careful here as some boiling rava might jump out at your hand as you stir. You could use a lid for shielding yourself. So stir the rava well removing lumps till all the water is dried up.

Add the coriander and let it stay on low flame with the lid on. Turn off the gas after about a minute, squeeze some lemon for additional taste and enjoy!