My weekend Breakkie..Pohe

Yes, I think I just should be blogging more frequently than this..took a long break..yes I can use the excuse for joining my new journey of the culinary art skills. But no, honestly, this should be make me pen down or rather type away more regularly. There are so many ideas and cuisines bubbling in the foodie mind of mine, but probably just too many. OK now is the time to bring on to my home kitchen one by one and then straight to the screen for my blog.

But this is not from the ones I am being trained at the school, but a very traditional Maharashtrian snack or breakfast. Actually I should confess I never liked Poha (in Hindi) or Cheerer Pulao ( in Bengali) when I was a kid. But as we all mature and our tongue matures too...Poha became one of my "Yum" dishes and of course the best part is also that it is not very oily or spicy too..(Of course depending on individual taste). I just tend to bend towards the healthier version for the family..having said that, when I was younger, I always thought ..Why don't ma add more oil and spice and just make it like of those roadside eatery's yum dishes...nice and bright colour and the zing too? But again as my hair greys out, I now know why she didn't listen to my logic of adding more and more oil. Any one can make the food tasty and look nice with dripping oil and spices ( mind you the word "Tasty" here is objective again- the grey toned hair ones will be probably on my side and of course with Generation Y, things have changed too with healthy eating habits). It takes lot of patience and infusing TLC on the pan to make the food bright and colourful yet tasty with less oil and spice.

I think I had enough blabbering about healthy eating..now for the ones who do not understand the Poha and Cheerer Pulao- this is Flattened Rice ( also called beatened rice) is deshusked rice which is flattened into flat dry rice flakes. If you want to understand more you may read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poha_(rice) .

Here goes how I made it..

Ingredients- 

Poha or Cheere- 1 and 1/2 cup 

Boiled Potato- 2 medium ( I boiled it in the microwave ..super fast for my sudden breakfast ideas)

Onion- 1 chopped very fine

Ginger - Young 1 inch- chopped fine- cut juliennes and fine chop

Curry Leaves- a handful ( I just plucked them fresh from balcony garden)

Green chillies- As much as you want , I used chopped chopped.

Hing ( Asaefotida)- a pinch

White Urad dal and mustard seeds mix - 1 tsp for tempering

Sugar- 2 tsp

Turmeric- 1/2 tsp

Chilli powder- 1/2tsp

Salt to taste

Peanuts- 1/4th cup

Peas- Frozen- 1/2 cup

Coriander leaves - to garnish. ( I did not have any in the fridge)

Pohe with Potato crisps and the sugary watermelon

How I made-

1. Wash the Poha in a bowl and drain it in a colander and squeeze out the water . Let it dry and then add 2 tsp sugar and 1 tsp salt and mix with your hand. Make sure all the flakes are seasoned well.

2. Fry the Peanuts brown in oil and keep aside. Be alert, they burn very easily.

3.To the hot oil, add the hing, Mustard and urad daal mix and curry leaves. Let the flavour infuse the oil and the seeds crackle. The kitchen just smell heavenly, I throw in the chillies and ginger.

4. To this fragrant oil with so many flavours zinging together, throw the chopped onion and fry till translucent.

5. Now goes the powdered spices- not too many- just turmeric, chilli, some sugar and salt. Wait for the lovely colour. Keep stirring, remember its not simmering but similar to chinese stir frying.

6. Chop the boiled potaotes into small cubes and add to this. Also add the peas and mix nicely.

7. Now goes the main ingredient - the Poha , now its the time to show your hand skills on the ladle and mix the onion mixture well with the poha flakes and see how beautifully the white dull flakes get the lovely bright colour. Mind you , all this I did with quite a less amount of oil and not too many spice. I am sure everyone can do it too. 

8. Add the fried peanuts and adjust the seasoning if you need to. 

9. Last but not the least , squeeze some fresh lemon juice to bring the tang on to taste. Sprinkle the fresh chopped coriander and serve on a light coloured plate to highlight the bright colour. 

10. I like to have some potato crisps, or we bongs say Jhuri bhaja on the top , to give that crunchy. Of course the peanuts make it quite crunchy too.

11. And yes, passed my son's tasting buds too. 

P.S. You can go more on the veggies like carrots, but as much of veggies you use, the traditional poha concept will transform to the Upma concept. So I would suggest try to keep it as basic to preserve the authenticity.

Eggey Times

Eggs--How do you like your eggs? If some one asks me this question..the immediate honest answer would be..whatever way you cook them. Indeed when I was a child I would have said not boiled though! But soon when I went to my PG days in Delhi, I found the chatpata ( spicy) way to even make the boiled eggs devine..just add some chopped onions, chillies, coriander leaves and chat masala..and MAGIC done!! And they actually became my favourite when the dubba (tiffin carrier) food used to bland and watery...I know not everyone who is reading this can actually visualise this..and cheers to the ones who can relate to this..Now this blog is about eggs and omlettes and..but definitely not Dubba food..will write another one on it sometime definitely. 

I even used to crave for eggs and eggs when I had the little one tucked in me. OMG..typing away at my workdesk ..and seeing all kinds of eggs in front of me. But honestly there were no eggs even at the premises. One day I actually called up S and said I need to have eggs badly!! And poor him, could not even react much, thanks to my baby in me..Best period in any woman's life and the best excuse..I am pregnant and blame the little one being created.

And to my shock when R was 1 year old, we found out that he has egg allergies and the rule was no eggs at home. Both S and I were waiting for the day when R would grow off his egg allergy and we could introduce him to the eggie world which he really missed out (specially on the birthday parties). The first reaction on the eggs challenge test few months ago, after he tasted a bit of the boiled eggs was 'Mumma this is so creamy buttery' and I must honestly admit that the boiled egg he was having did not even have salt, leave alone butter or anything else. So I opened my kitchen doors to eggs and a new addition to my breakfast table were eggs..oh my my!! Both S and I were delighted to see our little one enjoying his newly discovered food..

Todays's post was supposed to be Omlette curry ...kind of right! Just realized that I have not yet mentioned anything about Omlette..okay we all know Omlette ..I can go on and on if you don't stop me..but you know what! Omlette curry ( or rather what we Bengalis call it Omlette'r Jhol) is such a dear dish for me..I used to love when ma ( mum) cooked this for dinner with fulko roti ( Indian bread). It is actually quite a regular dish in the menu like Egg Curry.

So here goes how I made it and yes R loved it..I added more chillies to the leftovers and had it with bread the next day!!!

What I used

 6 Eggs

2 medium sized onions - chopped fine 

Tomato  -2 chopped fine

Ginger grated - 2 tsp
Garlic Grated- 2 tsp
Chopped Green Chillies- as much spicy as you want or as little.
Coriander Leaf- Chopped fresh and green
Cumin seed- 1 tbsp
Bay Leaf-2
Turmeric Powder-1tsp
Cumin powder- 1 tsp
Coriander powder-1tsp
Chilli powder-1 tsp ( I did not use it though)
Garam Masala - 1tsp
Salt and Sugar to taste
I used Mustard oil to cook this to bring that special aroma..If you want some other oil, go for it.

How I cooked--
1. Whisk the eggs as briskly as you can with half of the chopped onion, chopped chillies and coriander leaf. On a hot pan of shorsher tel (mustard oil---uuuu I love the aroma) pour the egg mixture and make fatty omlette. I generally repeat this process twice so that I have 2 golden omlettes.

2. Cut the omlettes into few square cubes.

3. Now I add some more oil to the pan and wait till it smoke and then throw in bay leaf, cumin seeds. When the seeds splutter, I add ginger and garlic and saute till the kitchen is filled with the fresh garlicky aroma. Then I throw in the rest of the onion and saute till pink. Now tomatoes, are ready to be mashed with the onions on the pan.

4. Then I mix all the spices in little tiny bowl with water ( this is a trick mum taught me and it does wonders if I am cooking in less oil , the spice gets cooked quickly and nicely..I should have a click for this in my next post). In goes the spice and salt and sugar to cooked mushy tomato onion mixture. Then I cover it for about 5 mins with some more water and let it cook.

5. In goes the Omlette slices and cook for another few minutes untill the gravy is ready and bubbly.

6. This is the time to add the pinch of garam masala and coriander leaves. I garnished with some red split red wax chillies.