Poori-Saagu ( Fried Indian bread served with spicy mixed vegetable stew).

Poori-Saagu is a common item found on the menu in restaurants in the region of Bangalore/Mysore in India. Whenever I visit Bangalore, I love to eat in the small hole-in-the-wall types restaurants that are all over the city. For some reason the food is absolutely delicious! Poori is nothing but puffed Indian bread that is usually fried. This is served with a mixed vegetable spicy stew that is made with coconut-based sauce.

So how is this healthy and what is a fried item doing on my blog? I can answer that honestly. My blog promotes healthy eating and living realistically. While best practice would be for us to eat healthy 100% of the time, this is not realistic. Everyone craves certain types of food from time to time. It is ok to indulge those cravings in MODERATION once in a while. My one such craving is poori.

Poori can be made a tad bit healthier by virtue of the choice of flours used. This can be done by using oat-flour instead of wheat flour. It fluffs up just as well as that which is made with wheat flour and tastes just as great! Do give it a try to check for yourself! You can make it gluten-free by using only oat flour, but that may get tricky when you fry them as once they expand, they tend to collapse.

These are also perfect for the lunchbox for the kids, especially when you serve it with a mixed vegetable side-dish such as Saagu.

For recipe for Saagu, Click here:

Recipe for Oats Poori:

Servings: 2-4

Ingredients: 6-8 small- medium sized pooris

Oat flour: 3/4 cup
Whole wheat flour: 1/4 cup
Cooking oil: 1 tsp
Salt: 1/4 tsp
Sugar: 1/2 tsp
Lukewarm water: 1/2 cup ( you may not require all of it).

Method:

In a bowl mix together the flour, 1/2 tsp oil, salt and sugar.

Make a well in the center.

Add water little bit at a time and make a nice, soft dough.

Knead well and make a ball.

Apply oil to the outside of the ball.

Cover with a damp cloth/ paper towel and keep aside for 15-20 minutes.

Pinch little portion of the dough to make small lemon sized balls. Now roll out the balls to make small pooris.

Heat oil in a wok/ kadai on medium flame.

When the oil is hot enough, drop the poori in it and with the back of a slotted spoon gently press it down into the oil. This will help the poori puff up.

When the poori puffs up and floats to the surface of the oil, flip it and let it cook for few seconds on the other side.

Now remove it from the oil and drain it on paper towels.

Serve hot with Saagu as I have done or any side dish of your choice!

Enjoy!

I am bringing this delicious breakfast to all my friends at Throwback Thursday#41, Fiesta Friday#122 and Saucy Saturdays#47! Angie's co-hosts this week are Mollie @ The Frugal Hausfrau and Aruna @ Aharam

Cooking made easy:

If you are not gluten-intolerant and you don't particularly care for the texture of oats flour, the best texture can be achieved by doing a 50:50 mix of oat flour and whole wheat flour.

Tip for healthy living:

This information is especially for people who are gluten-intolerant & those who choose to avoid gluten. While oats are naturally gluten free, it is best to get oats that are labelled " gluten-free", as quite often oats is contaminated with wheat as they are often processed in the same facility.