Avalakki(Poha) Vaggarane - orange, yellow, pink, green and black, what other colors can you spot in this delicious comfort of food?

The other day I was making a list of dishes I would like to post on the blog in the next couple of months (yes, I am organized, and no, it is not a new year resolution :-)) and I noticed that it was only made of special items or things I would prepare on occasion. I guess I was thinking that nobody really cares about the every day preparations unless there is something to make them stand out or in other words there is a 'twis(h)t to the story' :-). It is probably true, with hundreds or even thousands of food blogs, cookery shows and cook books, things tend to get repetitive from one source to the other especially with common items and it takes every blogger constant effort to keep things fresh and unique. But then there are some things that should not need to change, these are some of the comfort foods in every kitchen and every day food is needed well, every day. I reach out to my container of poha in the morning when I am running short on time and do not have any ready batter or bread lying around in the kitchen or too bored to eat the cereals and oats yet again in the morning. It takes no more than 20 minutes from start to finish and is a perfect way to start the day especially with a bowl of home made yogurt, fits snugly into lunch boxes without any hazard of spills and tastes divine even after it is cold. Any other requirements to be satisfied before you can feature it in your kitchen? I didn't think so :-)

While this avalakki vaggarane shows up atleast once in 2 weeks in my home, I was still hesitant to put it on the blog. Then something happened very recently (infact twice) to make me feel confident that it truly deserves a place on the blog. A friend of BH was staying with us over Christmas Holidays and when I made this for one of the breakfasts as they were heading out for a boys day out, our guest casually mentioned that we (in US) seem to get better quality poha/beaten rice than at Pune (where he came from). This was a very unexpected remark, I know the exported goods are sometimes better but what can make poha better here than Pune? And I have read and heard from everybody around me that Pune/Maharastra is known for its Poha dishes, so slightly intrigued, I asked him what he meant by that. He said the texture of the poha was very nice and the dish tasted very yummy. Now you can definitely pass this off as my polite guest's polite compliment and not attach any more significance to that simple statement but it was his 2nd day at home and I was actually wondering about my cooking skills since he was hardly eating anything remotely sufficient for a grown man since he landed. Both him and BH who has known him for a long time kept telling me that it was not the food but his normal eating habits. With that background, on the day I made this poha, he had 3 servings and enjoyed them :-). So I am convinced that it was not just a polite compliment of a guest. And further conversation made it clear that he thought the texture of the poha itself was unlike any he gets in Pune (BTW, he cooks regularly at home) and then I told him I made it so by powdering the store bought poha.

Then the next week, we had a family friend and wife visiting from Far East and as their stay was short, I made this poha again before they left for the airport. The couple relished it genuinely and made me feel all warm and fuzzy :-).

Buoyed by these two unexpected compliments, I thought this poha recipe of mine had definite potential on the blog, so here it is..Food can't get any simpler, satisfying or more delicious than this dish.

There are multiple versions of the poha - some with onion, some with potatoes, some with carrots, some a combination of 2 or more of these, and .... So I thought instead of writing a different post for each of those variations, I would give it to you one single "all in one" post as a reference for you to pick and choose from or make your own delicious combinations. I will also point out to my favorite ones so you know which ones to try first :-).

Although I make this dish by directly soaking the store bought poha/beaten rice in water, most days I run it in my mixer to make a rough or coarse rava kind of consistency before soaking it. This is the only way nammamma makes this dish and I love the texture and taste of it. It hardly takes 2-3 additional minutes and is compensated in the soaking time as the powdered poha soaks quicker than the whole and is very well worth the time and effort. But if you do want to skip that step, you can still follow the rest of the recipe and the variations to make a delightful seasoned poha.

What do you need to make Avalakki vaggarane? 
(This is how I made it the day I took the pictures, look at the variations given below for other equally yummy versions)
2 cups think poha/avalakki
2 Tblsp oil
1 Tsp mustard seeds
1 Tblsp chana dal
1 Tsp Urad dal
3-4 curry leaves
2-3 green chilies
1/2 inch ginger root
2 Tblsp finely chopped onion
2 Tblsp finely chopped carrots
1 Tblsp finely chopped cilantro
1 Tblsp grated/shredded coconut (fresh or frozen)
1/2 Tsp sugar (optional but recommended)
1 Tsp lemon/lime juice (optional)
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)

How do you make Avalakki Vaggarane? 

• Add the thick poha into your mixer jar and make a upma rava consistency by pulsing the mixer a few times. 
• Take the ground poha into a wide bowl and run water on it and immediately drain the water out. 
• Let the wet poha stand for 5 minutes (while you are preparing the seasoning) for it to soak up the water. 
• In the mean time, heat a wide pan and add oil to it. 
• Add mustard and the dals into the oil and let them come to a sizzle along with the oil (slow roasting of dals gives them the crunch and they stay that way even after you add the soaked poha). 
• Once mustard starts to pop, add chopped green chilies, finely chopped ginger and curry leaves and let them roast for 30 seconds. 
• Add the finely chopped onion and saute for a minute. 
• Add the chopped carrots, salt, turmeric powder and saute for 2-3 minutes until carrots becomes slightly soft and onions are cooked. This time is entirely dependent on the size of your vegetables, heat from the stove and your preference for crunchy or soft bites. 

• While the veggies are cooking, fluff up the soaked poha as it would have become one big tight mass (unless you over watered it :-)). break the lumps and make sure it looks completely fluffy. 
• Pour the fluffed poha into the pan, add chopped cilantro, shredded coconut and give a good mix. 
• Cover and cook for 2-3 minutes on low heat until the poha just warms up, remember there is no cooking of poha required. 
• Open the cover, switch off the stove, add lemon juice if using and serve warm or cold with a bowl of thick yogurt on the side. 

Notes: 

• Unlike the whole poha, soaking the ground poha is a little tricky, excess water will make it soggy, so err on the side of using less water and you can sprinkle some later if the poha looks very dry. 
• Mixer/blender wisdom: When grinding poha in the mixer, make sure you have added enough quantity to just cover the blades, if the amount is too less, it doesn't grind well and if it too much, it tends to make a powder. 
• If you are using whole poha, squeeze handfuls of it to remove all excess water before adding it to the seasoning. 
• You can finely chop green chilies if you like it spicier or leave them as big pieces that can be lifted out of the plate easily if someone is not friendly with the heat. 
• I sometimes use grated carrots instead of finely chopped ones, this changes the bite and texture but you can try it for a change. 

Variations:

1. Nammamma makes a very basic version - no oinions, no ginger and adds 1/2 Tsp sugar along with the fluffed up poha and ofcourse one and half times the quantity of coconut I gave here and it tastes divine. 
2. Cube and parboil potatoes (1 medium potato is good for this quantity) and add it along with onions to saute and crisp a little. This makes it kanda-batata poha (onion-potato). 
3. Bell peppers of different colors finely chopped make excellent flavor agents in this poha. Use them along with onions & carrots or without them. 
4. Green peas, fresh or frozen, boiled to tender and added not only gives a splash of color but also some protein boost. 
5. Add peanuts while roasting the dals to add some crunch to the poha. 
6. Add cooked garbanzo beans (chole) to upp the proteins. 
7. A restaurant version of this humble homely dish is generally served with a squeeze of lemon/lime and sprinkled with a spoon of sev (deep fried lentil sticks) or boondi on top. Looks pretty if you want to try it. 

Mosaravalakki - creamy yogurt poha to celebrate the birth of baby Krishna

There was once a small kid named Gopal who lived in a village with his widowed mother, they were poor and hardly made ends meet with the mother's meager earnings. When Gopal grew up to be old enough to go to school, his mother had one of the neighboring village teacher take him as a student in his school. Gopal had to walk through dense forests to reach his teacher's house every day, as his mother couldn't leave work and go with him, the little boy had to walk all alone. When he returned home the first day he was tired and completely scared. He didn't want to go back to school because of the long walk in the dark forests and his mother told him to call out to Krishna and said he was Gopal's elder brother who lived in the forest. The next day Gopal came back home and excitedly explained to his mother that his brother Krishna had come and walked with him until the edge of the forest, the mother was completely flabbergasted. This continued for the entire school year and Gopal was a happy child learning well at his school.

As the school year came to an end, the teacher organized a lunch for the students and told them to bring something special from home to share with all their friends. When Gopal asked his mother, the poor lady was very sad as she had nothing to send with him, so in order to pacify the crying boy she told him to ask his brother for something. Gopal went on his way, met his brother in the forest just like everyday and told him about the school lunch. The elder brother went inside the forest and came back with a small covered pot. Gopal went merrily to the school and gave it to his teacher. The teacher looked at the small pot and realized it wasn't going to be sufficient even for a couple of boys let alone the entire school but didn't say anything to the child. When everyone sat down for lunch, the teacher opened the pot and found thick, creamy, sweet smelling yogurt inside. He wanted to distribute atleast a drop of it to each kid and started spooning it out to another dish with the intention of thinning it down by adding water. But to his utter surprise he found that the small pot never seemed to become empty. He had his wife bring huge containers and as they went on filling those containers, the little pot was still full seeming to smile divinely at them. Everyone had their fill with the yummy tasting yogurt and thanked little Gopal.

This is a story from my childhood favorite Amar Chitra Katha comic books. I have told this to my daughter countless number of times. For me Krishna is synonymous with avalakki (beaten rice or poha) and mosaru(yogurt). Mosaravalakki is thick yogurt mixed with paper thin avalakki and garnished with seasoning. This was one of the treasured childhood snacks. One of my doddamma's (mom's older sister) didn't eat rice in the night and most days this would be her dinner and mosaravalakki is always distributed to everyone and never eaten alone. We used to sit expectantly and patiently in the kitchen until she mixed it well and dropped big dollops of the creamy mosaravalakki into our palms, I used to lick slowly and try to extend the moment of bliss for as long as I could :-).

Today is celebrated as Gokulashtami (Gokula~ Lord Krishna's Childhood home, Ashtami~Eighth day of the calendar) or Krishnashtami all over India to mark the birth of Lord Krishna. I made the mosaravalakki as an offering to the God.

I pack this in place of regular yogurt rice for a change when we go on our trips, it stays well. Just carry extra yogurt to mix in before eating.

What do you need to make Mosaravalakki? 
4-5 cups thick yogurt (preferably homemade)
1 cup paper thin avalakki/beaten rice
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
1/2 Tsp sugar
Seasoning:
1 Tblsp oil
1 Tsp mustard
1 Tsp chana dal/kadle bele
1/2 Tsp urad dal/uddina bele
2 green chilies - chopped small
4-6 curry leaves
1/2 inch piece of ginger root - peeled and chopped into thin julienes

How do you make Mosaravalakki? 

• Take avalakki in a bowl and wash it under running water once and drain the water. 
• Whisk the yogurt, add salt, sugar and the washed avalakki and mix well.
• Heat oil in a pan, add all the ingredients under seasoning and let mustard pop and dals turn pink. 
• Pour the sizzling seasoning on top of the mixed mosaravalakki and mix it in. 

• Share and enjoy this simple yet unbeatable tasty dish.

Notes:

• Do not skimp on the yogurt, good yogurt takes this dish to its next level, remember it is mosaravalakki and takes lot of yogurt to get the creamy texture.
• If you do not have home made yogurt, use plain store bought yogurt.
• Use only the extra thin or paper thin avalakki in this recipe, the thinker varieties change the texture.
• It is sufficient to just wash the avalakki once in running water for it to become soft.
• While making the seasoning, make sure the chili pieces turn light brown. If you do not like spicy food, reduce/skip green chilies.
• You can add cashew nuts to the seasoning and roast it until they turn pink for a richer flavor, I kept it simple.
• You can add chopped cilantro instead of curry leaves and asafoetida instead of ginger for different flavors.
• The yogurt gets absorbed if you keep it longer, add more yogurt and mix it to bring the right consistency.