Stacking up for quarantine with a tons of food was a good idea, except when you decide to move 2000km away and suddenly find yourself with way too much food on your pantry shelves and you have no idea what to do with it. But it turned out to be a good thing as it allowed me to express my creativity in different ways and experiment with new dishes.

So I was in this situation where I had to eat all my opened ingredients before moving, and I had some poha and frozen papad left in the fridge but wasn’t sure what I can do with it, so I googled up some recipes and came across this Gujarati style snack called papad poha chivda. Of course, I didn’t have all the required ingredients but plenty of others, and because I wanted to use all my stuff up (and not to get new any ones on the shelf) I decided to make it my own and turned the snack into a filling breakfast.

Ingredients:

2 frozen papad
1 cup poha
1 tsp coconut oil
1/4 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tbs dry coconut flakes
1 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp chili flakes
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp dried curry leaves
salt to taste
3 small baby potato, sliced
2-3 sundried tomato, chopped
1 tbs sunflower seeds
mustard (optional) to taste
1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
juice of half lemon
1/4 ts cumin seeds

Start by preparing the papads as per package instructions, then set aside.

Then rinse your poha (flattened rice) in water until they soften. Use a colander to rinse these light rice flakes. Be careful not to rinse them too much or else they will break and become mushy. During rinsing, they will absorb water and soften. Drain all of the water. Poha should loose its crunchiness, crispiness and when you break them between your finger, they should easily get crushed or mashed. Set aside. Season with salt as per taste, add turmeric powder and gently mix with a spoon or with clean hands.

Heat the coconut oil in a pan. Add the mustard seeds first and heat them until they start to pop.
Add potato and onions and sauté them until onions become translucent. Mix in cumin seeds, coriander, chili and curry leaves. Sauté for a until potatoes start to soften and mix in the poha and sundried tomato. Cover and steam for about 2 mins under low heat. Once potatoes are cooked through (the smaller their size the faster they cook), switch off the heat and let the pan remain covered for 1 to 2 minutes.

Then sprinkle with lemon juice, mix in coconut flakes, give it a good stir.
Break the papads into smaller pieces and stir in the poha.

You can keep it like this but I love a bit of extra creaminess so I also topped with a small amount of mustard and mixed it in before eating.