Name: Savoury semolina with paprika oil
Prep time: 12 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 3 servings
Ingredients: 150 g Semolina; 20 g Onion (dried, flakes); 6 g Curry powder; 4 g Cumin (ground); 2 g Turmeric (ground); 2 g Chilli flakes; 100 g Marrowfat peas (tinned); 40 ml Vegetable oil (sunflower or rapeseed); 20 ml Lemon juice (bottled); 4 g Salt (fine)

Savoury semolina with paprika oil

An established dish converted to shelf-stable ingredients. Every substitution is documented below.

How long it keeps

About 6 months, set by Semolina.

Indicative, for planning a build before you buy. The answer for a pack you already own is the best before date printed on it, and that only holds if it has been stored as the label says.

Serves

Burners

Pans

Water

0.6 L

Active

12 min

Total

20 min

Ingredients

Semolina 150 g
Onion (dried, flakes) 20 g
Curry powder 6 g
Cumin (ground) 4 g
Turmeric (ground) 2 g
Chilli flakes 2 g
Marrowfat peas (tinned) 100 g
Vegetable oil (sunflower or rapeseed) 40 ml
Lemon juice (bottled) 20 ml
Salt (fine) 4 g

Semolina as a savoury dish rather than a pudding, which is how most of the world eats it and how almost nobody in Britain does.

Toast the semolina dry first. Three minutes in the dry pan, stirring, until it smells nutty and turns a shade darker. This is what stops it going to paste and it is the step that makes the dish.

Semolina toasted dry, tipped out.
Oil in the pan, dried onion three minutes. Curry powder, cumin, turmeric and chilli for twenty seconds.
450 ml water and the salt. Bring to the boil. Drained peas in.
Rain the toasted semolina in with one hand while stirring hard with the other. All at once and it lumps irreversibly.
Stir for 4 to 5 minutes until it thickens and comes away from the pan.
Lemon juice off the heat, generously.

Serve immediately. It sets firm within about ten minutes, which is fine, it just becomes a different dish that you cut rather than spoon.

Serves 3.

What this was adapted from

Upma: the South Indian savoury semolina breakfast

mustard seeds, curry leaves and fresh green chilli → cumin, curry powder and chilli flakes

Upma is defined by its tempering, and curry leaves and mustard seeds are the two things in it with no shelf-stable substitute. Cumin and curry powder give a warm, rounder spicing instead -- recognisably the same dish in structure, not in flavour.