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When I began freelancing and formed a company, I called it “Roasted Vermicelli” more-or-less at random: I had previously purchased the domain name vermicel.li, and sticking the word “roasted” in front was required to make the business name unique within New York State.

After some years of this—plus a blog tagline which promises musings on pasta but has yet to deliver any—when I cooked dinner the other day, it was time to cook using some roasted vermicelli.

Roasting

The actual process of roasting the vermicelli is quite simple: heat a little bit of fat (oil or ghee) in a pan, put the uncooked vermicelli in, and toast for a few minutes, stirring constantly, then remove from the heat. The result looks something like this:

If this is too much work, it’s probably just as well to skip making dinner altogether, but my local Indian market does stock pre-roasted vermicelli.

Then What?

There are a few different recipes one can then make using the roasted vermicelli. Semia payasam is a dessert with condensed milk, sugar, and nuts. I, however, made vermicelli upma, which is a savory dish with lentils, nuts, and vegetables. Apparently it’s normally served for breakfast, but I ate it for dinner and didn’t get struck down by any gods of propriety.

The recipe I followed is from a site called “Show Me the Curry”, and the result looked like this:

It tasted good, and I was able to take some photographs for my next batch of business cards. A successful project!