Name one popular breakfast recipe - 'Upma' might be the first dish that will pop up in your mind! Undoubtedly, upma is one of the most popular breakfast dishes of India; rather it can easily be touted as an 'all-timer' dish. The mother ingredient for upma is semolina/sooji/rava. It is a tasty morning treat but sometimes we get bored of eating the same food every other day. What if we tell you that there's a twisted recipe of upma that will have almost the same ingredients, but with different preparation method and texture? The dish is called 'namkeen sooji'. This dish, which is basically a savoury, is popular in Bengal as 'jhal sooji'.
'Namkeen sooji' is easy to cook and can make for a perfect breakfast and also a snack, anytime of the day. The only thing one needs to keep in mind while cooking this dish is to add the right amount of water to make it moist and fluffy (not lumpy as upma). The best part is you can actually customise the vegetables and spices used in the dish as per your taste buds.
(Also Read: Semolina Or Suji For Weight Loss: How To Consume This Food Grain To Shed Kilos Faster (With Recipes)
Here We Have A Namkeen Sooji Recipe With Some Commonly Used Ingredients:
Ingredients
Sooji- One and half cup
Potato- One (small cubes)
Onion- One (finely sliced)
Tomato- Half (take the seeds out and cut into small cubes)
Chilli- Three to four (slitted and finely chopped)
Ginger- Two teaspoons (finely chopped)
Curry leaves- Two tablespoons
Peanuts- Two tablespoons
Salt- As per taste
Sugar- As per taste
Dried Red Chilli- One (cut into two halves)
Cardamom- Two (slightly crushed)
Cinnamon- One stick (broken into two pieces)
Cloves- Three to four
Mustard seeds- A little less than half teaspoon
Bay leaf- One (cut into two halves)
Haldi (Turmeric powder)- A pinch
Refined oil- Three to four tablespoons
Ghee- One tablespoon
Preparation:
Dry roast the sooji in a kadhai till it turns light brown. Make sure of keeping the flame low, or else the sooji will burn quickly. Take it off in a bowl.
Place the same kadhai on high flame and add the ghee and refined oil together.
Fry the peanuts and take them off. You can also use cashews and raisins, instead of peanuts.
Now add bay leaf, red chilli, cinnamon stick, cloves, cardamom, curry leaves and mustard seeds respectively and fry till they release a good smell (some people use jeera instead of mustard seeds).
On medium flame, add haldi and then potatoes in the kadhai and fry for some time (almost 80 per cent cooked).
As it turns light golden in colour, add onions and fry well till the onions turn light brown in colour.
Add ginger and chillies and cook till the ginger oozes out its smell.
Add the tomatoes, salt and sugar and fry for a while till the whole mix releases oil. Remember, you can use any vegetable of your choice.
Now add the roasted sooji and mix all of them together for almost three to four minutes.
Check the salt and sugar and add more if needed. Some people like their namkeen sooji to be salty-and-sugary in taste.
Finally, add half a cup of hot water and mix. The water will get absorbed. Remember, excess amount of water will make the sooji wet and lumpy (instead of fluffy).
Keep stirring to break the lumps. Make sure every grain of the sooji looks separated, yet moist.
Finally, add the peanuts, some ghee and mix; turn off the heat and close the lid. You can add some more chillies if you want, for the heat.
Serve it hot and enjoy with some ketchup!
Also Read: One Ingredient, Many Uses: Kitchen Experiments with Rava
You can also pack it as lunch for your office or in your child's tiffin-box. Try this 'namkeen sooji' at home and let us know how you like it in your comment below.