Poha
Flattened rice, mustard seeds, turmeric, peanuts and lime.
Maui's an app that plans a whole week of dinners like this one. See how it works ↓
Rinse, never soak. Poha is already cooked and dried - it only needs enough water to soften, which is about twenty seconds under a tap. Every bad poha in the world is a bowl of it left sitting in water while someone chopped an onion.
Ingredients
Everything below makes 2 servings.
- 2 cupspohathick variety - thin poha disintegrates when rinsed
- 2 tbspneutral oil
- ⅓ cupraw peanuts
- 1 tspbrown mustard seeds
- 12 leaffresh curry leavespicked off the stem
- 1 smallyellow onionfinely diced
- 1 mediumgreen chilislit lengthwise, or minced for more heat
- ½ tspground turmeric
- ½ cupfrozen peas
- 1 tspsugar
- ¾ tspkosher salt
- 1 mediumlimecut into wedges
- 3 tbspfresh cilantrochopped
In the app these rescale to however many people you're feeding.
Nutrition
Per serving, as written.
- 350calories
- 9gprotein
- 52gcarbs
- 12gfat
Swaps move these numbers. A different protein or base changes them.
Instructions
Knife work first, then the stove. Nothing below asks you to chop while something burns.
- Rinse the poha in a colander under cold running water for about 20 seconds, tossing with your hand, then leave it to drain. It should end up damp and separate - squeeze a flake and it crushes with no crunch left. Do NOT soak it in a bowl of water; poha turns to porridge in about a minute.
- Stir the turmeric, sugar and salt into the drained poha with your fingers so every flake goes yellow before it hits the pan.
Fry the peanuts
Heat the oil in a wide pan over medium. Fry the raw peanuts until they turn golden and smell toasted, 3-4 min, then lift them out with a slotted spoon and set aside, leaving the oil behind.
4 min · hands onTemper the spices
Into the same oil, add the brown mustard seeds. Wait for them to pop - genuinely pop, jumping in the pan, about 30 seconds. Add the fresh curry leaves and stand back; they spit. Ten seconds later add the yellow onion and green chili and cook until the onion is soft and translucent, 4 min.
5 min · hands onPeas, then poha
Stir in the frozen peas and cook 2 min. Tip in the seasoned poha with its ground turmeric, sugar and kosher salt, and fold gently - lift and turn rather than stir, or the flakes break down. Lid on, heat low, 2 min to steam through.
4 min · hands onFinish with lime
Off the heat, fold the fried peanuts back through, then the fresh cilantro. Squeeze a wedge of lime over each bowl at the table - poha without lime tastes flat and nobody can say why.
1 min · hands onMake it yours
Every swap here is one Maui already knows how to make, including what it does to the timing.
Fry 4 oz cubes golden first, fold in at the end - adds dairy, no longer vegan. Adds about 5 minutes.
The standard pairing - simmer tea, milk, sugar and a crushed cardamom pod. Adds about 6 minutes.
What keeps
Poha dries out and goes hard in the fridge - the flattened rice stales in a way cooked rice does not. It is an eat-now breakfast.
The peanuts can be fried ahead and kept in a jar for a week.
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the three-legged cat
who plans your dinner.
Think of her as a sous chef for your whole table. She plans dinner everyone will look forward to - built around your schedule and working in everyone's taste and dietary restrictions. That's the mental load of dinner, off your plate.
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