Friday is the beginning of our weekend here in the UAE and all I want to do is sleep in (that thing doesn’t probably exist in mom life, but a girl can dream, yeah?). But I have to wake up early because we have a bunch kids coming over to learn Veda from the husband and to make up for waking them up early on a weekend and to motivate myself, I make breakfast for them. So Fridays are usually all about exciting, kid friendly breakfasts because as much as the husband would disagree, I know some of those kids come here for the food. *evil grin*
So, this morning I woke up thinking I’ll whip up some nice kanda batata poha and started prepping and only then did I realize that the poha I had was the super fine variety. It clumped up the minute I washed it. So what did the genius (me, duh!) do?
I made tikkis out of it. Tikkis, for breakfast! If this doesn’t excite a kid, I don’t know what will. Okay, maybe ice cream or cake or pizza would do that too or if you like me, have a crazy kid, just a bowl of yogurt could bring out all that excitement too. But anyway, I made these tikkis and they tasted SO good.
The kids (including my own) loved it and so did we.
Here’s all that you need:
- 1tsp mustard seeds
- A handful of peanuts
- 2 cups fine poha (washed)
- 1 onion – finely chopped
- 4-5 large curry leaves -finely chopped
- A fat pinch of asafetida (hing)
- 1tsp chilli powder (adjust according to taste)
- 1/4 tsp turmeric (haldi) powder
- 1tsp coriander (dhania) powder
- A fat pinch cumin (jeera) powder
- 1/4tsp garam masala
- Salt (as per taste)
- A small bunch of fresh coriander leaves (finely chopped)
- 1tbs olive oil or any cooking oil of choice
Method:
Heat oil in a pan, when it’s hot, splutter the mustard seeds, add the curry leaves, hing and peanuts and fry for 30 seconds. Then add the onions and sauté till transparent. Now reduce the flame and add all the powders and give a nice stir ensuring you don’t burn them. About 30 seconds or so. Add the chopped coriander, salt and mix well and switch off the flame.
To this, add the poha, it should have clumped completely which is why you should use the super fine variety (otherwise you wouldn’t be able to make tikkis out of it without adding some other binding agent) and mix everything really well.
Once done, grease your palms with some oil and make balls out of them and flatten it to make tikkis.
Place on a hot tawa greased with oil/ghee and fry until golden on both sides.
That’s about it.
I served it with simple tomato ketchup and it was all gone in no time.
If you have a younger baby, I’d suggest chopping/coarsely powdering the peanuts (assuming your baby isn’t allergic to it) and adding a little bit of lemon juice in place of salt and adjusting the spice levels accordingly.
PS: I may seem a little obsessed with making tikkis, but seriously, what better way to fix messes and use up leftovers than making something delicious that is crispy on the outside and melts in the mouth when you take a bite? Come on, tell me.
And So We Adult 