Dummies Guide to Making Rava Upma

Hi there, dummy! How is life? Or, as they ask in North Karnataka, Oota aitha? 

My first tip to you is this -- while starting cooking, always start with the soaking. While whatever needs to be soaked soaks, you can do the cutting. This will save you time. Now, upma requires no soaking. So, you could first go soak those clothes you need to hand-wash because colour will run. Or, take warm water in a tub, add salt and shampoo and soak your feet in it. Feels good, doesn't it?

Upma, though, needs roasted rava. Don't bother with roasting rava. That process does not soothe your soul. In other words, it's deadly painful. Just buy roasted rava. Or, buy Naga Sooji Double-Roasted. That's the granddaddy of all roasted ravas. Because it's the only one that's double roasted. So, if you roast it again, it becomes triple roasted. That's overkill. Don't roast Double-Roasted Rava. Don't. It's the third basic rule of cooking. (The first rule is: Don't be afraid. The second rule is: Say "Sai Ram" before you start.)

Upma optionally requires cutting. Of onions. Or tomatoes. Or carrots. Or beans. On okra. (Ok, I'm kidding about the okra.) Take any of the above vegetables in whatever quantity (see, I'm pro-choice) and cut them into smallish pieces. If the pieces are not of the same size, you will be docked 41 points by the Samayaleshwara, the Lord of Cooking. But don't worry, Uncle Samayal's brain -- like cooking itself -- is a great combination of bad mathematics and a ton of forgiveness. So, he won't really dock you anything.

So, once you're done cutting the onions... wait... you're not one of those types, are you? The sort that doesn't eat onion and garlic because they grow underground, but eats carrots, beetroots, potatoes and chamagadda? There's a word for people like you. It begins with 'h'. No, I don't mean 'hare-brained'.

Sounds like.

Back to our chopped onions now. Just keep them aside. But not too far away from your stove. You'll need them sooner than you think.

Take a pan -- a kadai (in India) or a wok (if you're in the East) -- (ok, I want to say cooking is no "wok in the phak", but I shall refrain) and put some oil in it. Don't put too much, it's not good for your health. But don't put too little; else your tongue will complain. Switch on the gas. Put the kadai on the gas.

Now, dummy, I presume you know how to switch on the gas? You take the starter (it looks like a steel syringe with no needle) in your right hand (if you're a right hander), place it near the mouth of the burner, press and turn the knob ninety degrees (No need to get your protractor out. You can just use an approximation.) counterclockwise with your left hand (if you're a right hander), and then click the starter as if you're injecting life into the burner. Watch the flame crackle brightly, warming the cockles of your heart. (You might have to click more than once.)

Right. Now. Gas burning. Oil heating. Quickly introduce some mustard seeds (kadugu) into the pan, and follow it up with urad dal and channa dal. Hop on one leg twenty-one times in front of the pan, holding your hands on your hips. The time taken for you to hop will be enough for the dals to have browned a little. If you aren't an h-word, add the onions. Now, hop on the other leg twenty-one times. By this time, your onions will be transparent. (Now, you may ask me why you should hop. Why can't you just count in your head? There is a reason, dummy. It's healthier. It builds an appetite. Most importantly, at the end of all that hopping, whatever the upma tastes like, you'll devour it.)

Now, you can add all or any of the following -- green chillies (slit), green chillies (chopped), green chillies (whole), dry red chillies, ginger, ginger paste, garlic, garlic paste, methi seeds or curry leaves. Wow, that's a lot of choice, isn't it? You know the great thing about cooking -- there are no rules. You feel like adding coffee at this point, add coffee. You feel like mixing some wine, mix some wine. You want to add coconut milk, add coconut milk. You want to add ragi malt powder, add ragi malt powder. You want to add whipped cream, add it. You want to add pasta sauce, add pasta sauce. See, if you add tasty things, it will taste good. (No, that's not always true. But there's no better way to find out than to actually get into the kitchen and try.)

Now, add the remaining vegetables and water. Two cups of water, approximately, for one cup of rava. Then, add salt (to taste) (obviously to taste, not to not taste) (ok, bad joke).

[Life tip: Err on the conservative side with the salt, you can always compensate later. If you're too liberal with the salt now, you're stuck with something too salty. Then, your only option is to hop away until you can eat the upma.]

You can also mix all or any of the following (Yes, you're supposed to say, "Whee! Such a libertarian recipe this is!") -- turmeric powder, coriander powder, chilli powder, sambar powder, rasam powder, peppercorns, crushed pepper, heeng, garam masala... Feel free to improvise. Unimaginative cooking is insipid cooking. Insipid cooking is tasteless cooking. (God, I sound like a self-help guru.)

Let the water boil. Let the vegetables cook. Into this colourful, boiling goo, pour the rava. (Hopefully, you have Naga Sooji Double-Roasted rava.) (No, they haven't paid me for this blog.) (Really, they haven't.) (I wish they do, though. Hey, Naga people? Can you hear me? I'm advertising for you guys. Come on. Give me some dough.)(Shouldn't have said dough in a cookery blog. It has different connotations here.)

While pouring the rava, remember this -- POUR IT IN BATCHES. AND KEEP STIRRING. IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW THIS INSTRUCTION, GOD WILL PUNISH YOU. (See, we're not all that libertarian after all. More like Gandhian liberalism. "Hey, I'm liberal. You're liberal. We're all liberal. But we mustn't drink. We must pray to God. We must be clean in thought and deed.")

The thing with upma is that when you add the rava (as I said earlier, preferably Naga Sooji Double-Roasted), it turns into upma faster than you think it will. I'd say, on full flame, you've upma-fied in 45 seconds flat. In other words, in fifteen one-legged hops. Newbies don't expect that. And because they don't, they screw it up. The trick is this: when it is still a little gooey, say two-thirds its final intended consistency, turn the gas off and cover the pan. (This is because it will solidify in its own heat. If you turn the gas off when it is the consistency you want it to be, it'll turn into rock upma. Can you smell what The Rock's cooking? I can't. Thank God. Have you seen the guy? Do you feel like you want to smell his cooking?)

This is the great thing about upma -- you can make it (and make it quite tasty) in less time than it takes for you to read this blog post. (That's partly because I digress a lot, and I like irritating people with my sense of humour. A bit like Govinda or Ravi Teja, you know -- the humour is based on the fact that it is slightly irritating. If it gets too irritating, it's too irritating. If it gets any less irritating, it's not funny anymore.)

So, if you avoid the cutting of too many vegetables, you're done in 5-7 minutes flat. At the end of it, you have yummy, healthy, traditional South Indian breakfast. That hot-Tamizhnaattu-pulchritude/ NRI-Karthik-Iyer-who's-missing-South-Indian-food (delete as per preference) you've been trying to impress  will fall head over heels in love with you.

So, what are you doing here? Get into the kitchen, and cut open that packet of Naga Sooji Double-Roasted, yo!

Dummies' Guide to Making Aloo Curry

Aloo Curry making is an art form. It works on imponderables and intangibles. One must understand the subtle nuances of the art to appreciate its complexities. The handing down of its recipe through the ages would even make for a extraordinary study in pedagogy. At some level, it is divine. It is oddly elevating. It helps the cook and the eater experience the Supreme Being.

Bullshit.

Aloo Curry making is easy. It is done quickly and you can hardly ever go wrong. Trust me, I talk from months of experience.

Before getting to the recipe itself, a few words of advice on cooking in general:

1. Don't panic. Cooking involves fireworks. Cooking involves burning, fermenting, soaking and all kinds of other dirty things. But, little can go badly wrong.
2. There is no definitive recipe for anything. Experimentation is the mother-in-law of invention (necessity being the mother).
3. Read the instructions fully and clearly before embarking. (I made this mistake the first time I ever made Rasam. I followed step-by-step instructions and I was very happy that the liquid smelt, looked and tasted like Rasam. Then, I reached the last instruction, "Put Dal." Bleddy, I hadn't even kept any Dal in the cooker.)
4. Lastly, learning to cook is like learning to use Windows. You'll learn more as you experiment more. Don't worry. There's always ctrl-alt-del. (In this case, the nearest Shanti Sagar or Darshini with Thali meals).
   

So, here's how you do it. Listen carefully, because you wont get these detailed instructions ever again:

1. You take some potatoes (4 medium-sized potatoes if you're alone - for two meals - it took me almost five aloo days to figure that quantity out.) in a little bowl. Wash them (Yes yes. One must be a little clean also.).
   
2. Then put some water in the bowl, and dunk the thing into the pressure cooker. (You may put your rice along with this - in a different bowl, duh. Or even dal. In a different bowl, duh.) (Amma says you can even add salt and manjapodi at this stage, but I'm not too fond of that system). Remember: There must be some water in the bottom of the pressure cooker. Two steel tumblers of water will do.
   
3. Close the pressure cooker. Put the whistle thingy.
4. Turn on the gas. (Crucial step. Don't miss.)
5. Rice usually takes 3-4 hoots of the whistle. So does aloo. So wait. After the first whistle, reduce the flame. I don't know scientific reasons for this, but do it anyway. This takes some time. Meanwhile, some possible hazards: (a) Safety valve burst: So, there's steam all over the place and your kitchen looks like one of Bangalore's pubs. This happens, I'm told, when the outlets for steam get blocked, or there isn't enough water in the cooker. Chill. Your local cooker guy can fix it in five minutes. You can continue boiling your aloo in any other vessel. (b) Whistle doesn't come: Wait, da. It takes a while. (c) Whistle is intermittent, not continuous: Just tap the handle. (d) Whistle doesn't stop: Just take a ladle and hit it down.
6. Now, wait. Patience is the key. Wait until all the hissing sound from the cooker dies down. This takes more time than you think it will. Once it is soundless, open the cooker.
   
7. Take the aloo vessel out using (what we call at home as an) idukki. (Apparently, it is called a Pakkad in Hindi. And 'Tongs' in English.) (See picture.)
8. Now, the aloo is too hot to be touched. Therefore, drain out the hot water, and pour cold water on it. (No, there's no need to fetch cold water from the fridge. Tap water will do.)
9. Now, peel the aloo. This is a litmus test. If you can peel it with your hands, then the aloo is boiled. Else, go back and boil it in a vessel.
10. Now, my favourite step. Cut the aloo. You can cut it 'as you please'. (Those are the exact words in the recipe I've written down from my Periamma's dictation.) I usually take out all my frustrations on the aloo at this stage. As the famous line goes, "Tum Sita ho. Ise Raavan samajhke maar. Tum Draupadi ho, Dushasan samajhke maar. Tum Kali ho, mahishasur mardini ho. Maar, maar." Yes. So cut it. As you please. Smaller the pieces, the better it cooks. But don't kill yourself trying to cut it too small. Medium size pieces will do.
    
11. Okay. Now comes the real cooking part. Take some oil (don't take too much, because it isn't good for you), some kadugu (small mustard seeds) and ulutham paruppu (urad dal = white lentils?) in a kadai. Put it on the gas. Turn on the gas. Wait for it to start bursting. Once it sounds like a muted 100-wala, put your cut aloo into it. (You may, at this stage add cut tomatoes, onions. But it involves cutting.)
    
12. Then add a pinch of manjappodi (haldi) and salt (uppu/ namak) and chilli powder. (I prefer MTR rasam powder to chilli powder. You can even try green chillies. Or if you're really experimental, the podi you use with your dosa/idli. Don't try pepper.)
    
13. MIX. Mix till your hands hurt. Mix till your eyes water. Mix till the last rays of the evening sun disappear to make way for quaint moonlight. Okay. Serious. Mix till all the aloo gets the same colour. The same reddish-brownish-yellow. Leave it in the kadai. Count till twenty in the 'tic-tic-one' format. Turn off the gas. Pump up the jam.
    
14. There you have it! Your very own aloo curry!! (Oh, at the last stage, you can add some coriander leaves. I usually OD on this because I love coriander leaves. Else, you could squeeze a lemon.)
    

Man, I should write a cook book.