Recipe: Poha

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 If I could eat one and only one dish for breakfast for life, I would eat poha.

(Actually, I lie, I love South Indian breakfasts - I would love to eat idli or dosa with sambar chutney too.)

Idli/ Dosa is slightly harder to prepare because you would need to soak rice and pulses overnight and then grind them, but making poha is incredibly simple, therefore it is my preference. 

Depending on where you come from, your poha could taste different, naturally. The best version of poha I had in my life was in Navi Mumbai. My mom also makes yummy poha, it has always been one of my favourite breakfasts.

Ingredients

- flattened rice (poha) *
- turmeric (ground)
- peanuts, whole and unpeeled *
- mustard seeds, whole (optional) *
- maggi masala
- Hoyts herbs mix
- lemon juice
- curry leaves, 5-6
- coriander
- onion, chopped
- salt
- potato (optional)
- carrot (optional)
* These ingredients are usually available in local Indian stores. A good place to get things in Canberra would be Bharat International.

Process

- Soak the poha for a very brief moment. If the poha is thin or medium thick, soak for no more than 2 minutes. If the poha is thick, soak it for about 4 minutes. It would usually say on the packet how thick the rice flakes are on the packet.
- Boil chopped potatoes and carrots and then fry them.
- Fry the peanuts and mustard seeds along with curry leaves until mustard seeds start crackling, and the peanuts look well-fried.
- Fry chopped onion until it caramelises. Put the soaked poha in after draining out the water.
- Season with salt and pepper, and add maggi masala or whatever garam masala/ spice mix you have.
- Add turmeric, enough for all of the poha to turn yellow. Do not add too much turmeric. I usually add about 1/2 tbsp.
- Add fried potatoes and carrots to the fried poha. Carrots makes the poha sweeter. Do not add too much carrot if you do not want your poha to taste sweet.
- Alternately, if you do not want to add carrots, but want a different flavour to your poha, sprinkle some sugar as well. Do not add too much sugar, just a little bit. The salt + sugar + lemon juice + spices combination is pretty good. I like it. Personally, I would never add sugar if I was adding carrots to my poha because I do not like my food to be very sweet.
- Add in the herbs mix, lemon juice and mix well.
- Top with chopped coriander. 

Plating
Just take as many servings of poha as you'd like. Easy!

Here is a gif of all the poha versions I made (has the very good ones and the terrible ones):






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