If ever there was an invention that deserves all the accolades in the world, i think maggi would win hands down . The staple diet (read only) of all the bachelors, worshipped by every hostel boy and girl alike; its invention according to me, is the equivalent of say, finding a cure for AIDS. Its that important!!
Now having stayed in a hostel right from Class 2 onwards, i think i must have atleast contributed a fairly large amount to the maggi makers kitty. Whenever i am in a nostalgic mood, the first thing that i am reminded of is our fights over maggi, hiding in corners and eating maggi, begging borrowing and stealing money in order to buy maggi. In short,our entire world revolved around that 10 rupee yellow coloured pack. Everyone's heard of the traditional ' do minute ' wala way of preparing maggi. But during the course of my hostel life, me and my friends came up with some other innovative ways of devouring that maggi pack. So here i am, ready to share all those secret recipies that you never thought existed. A word of caution though;try them at your own risk.

Method 1 :
This is the traditional and most boring way (in my definition) of preparing maggi. For this you need to boil water and then put the maggi in it along with some boiled vegetables in order to add some good nutrients into it. In other words BORING with a capital B.

Method 2 :
This is what is called the ' kaccha' or raw maggi method. The simplest and also one of the yummiest ways of having maggi. All you need to do is crush the maggi while its still in the pack, then open it, add the tastemaker to it and simply go shake shake for a while. And Voila, there you have it. Simple to do;the best method when you are reallly in a hurry.

Method 3 :
Ah! Now this one is my favourite and you can say its sort of unofficially patented by me and my friends. Now our major aim in life,yes sir, is to pass this knowledge from generation to generation so that others can also savour that wonderful taste and thank us for eons to come.
How is it prepared? Its very simple,my friends. For this, again you need to crush the maggi in the packet itself. Then add hot water to the crushed maggi in the pack and keep it aside for 5 minutes. Then you add the masala, mix it with your hands ( yes, thats how you get that special taste. No use eating if you don't get your hands dirty!) and leave it for 5 minutes again till most of the water gets soaked up. And now eat it with your hands. Ah, believe me you'll keep wanting to lick your fingers after trying out this one.. I suggested this method to one of my friends recently and she's still waiting for a chance to thank me in return. She says its going to be the best return gift i'll ever get. Oh boy,i can hardly wait :-)
A piece of healthy advice though. If you can, use boiled water that you can get from your boiler. Yes, you heard right; from your boiler. You see, when we were in hostel, our only source of hot water in the entire town of NainiTal was our huge school boiler that was used to heat the bathing water of the entire school!. Now let me tell you, this was no ordinary boiler. It was atleast a 120 years old, monstrous in size and equally black from both the inside and outside. According to our research, the maggi tasted simply out of this world due to the extra nutrients added by that boiler water.. So try and search for something like that, else you won't get the same results that we got.

Method 4 :
This is basically a modification of the above stated method. Instead of making the maggi in the pack itself, you need to crush the maggi and pour out the contents in a steel glass. Then repeat all the steps as explained above; substituting your hand for a spoon. We came up with this method in order to please those people who go Yuck Yuck at the sight of maggi lathered fingers. I pity such people!

So there you have it; my secret recipies for preparing maggi!! Tried and tested ( without major side effects) by a group of people who are somehow still miraculously alive. Now we also came up with the right method to make WAI-WAI ( for those uninformed, Wai Wai is Maggi's cousin which is mainly found in hill stations in north India; places close to the Nepal border, cause thats where it comes from). But i guess,that'll be another post in itself.
So till then friends,wenever you feel hungry just shout " Mummy,bhook lagi !!! Bas do minute beta!!" . BON APPETITE :-)