Poha: A Lightweight Hiking Breakfast
Correct rehydration is the key to a yummy meal. Use food grade Chux or cheesecloth.
This tasty recipe doesn’t require dehydrating: vegan and gluten-free ingredients are already dried and simply combined and rehydrated in camp. Adjust protein by increasing the nuts or pulses. The flat rice (also called rice flakes or flattened rice) is available at good supermarkets, or try your local health food store or Indian grocer. Poha is not rice cereal.
With only a small amount of cooking prep beforehand, it’s pretty simple. In camp, you can even cold soak this recipe because the rice rehydrates so quickly! Plus, we include cheat hacks at the end for those who prefer ease above all else! Cast aside your doubts about this spicy, flavoursome Indian breakfast: over a billion people can’t be wrong!
Ingredients (two serves):
90g/3.2oz flat rice
20g/0.71oz freeze dried peas
40g/1.4oz dry roasted peanuts (you can vary with the edamame beans for protein content),
20g/0.71oz currants or to taste (reader suggestion)
20g/0.71oz roasted edamame or roasted chickpeas (you can vary with the peanuts for protein content)*
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds **
¼ tsp turmeric powder
1 tbsp dried fried shallots (from supermarkets)
1 tsp dried crushed chillies (or to taste: we use 2)!
½ tsp salt to taste
Olive oil – optional, added when you’re on the track***
*Fitness trainer and hiker Travis Nemeth suggests swapping the peanuts and peas for roasted edamame beans to provide significantly more protein. Carnivores can add jerky. We tried this but found we preferred the taste of a mix of peanuts and peas with edamame beans - trading a little protein for taste!
** You can use any seeds. Fennel and coriander would also go well.
***We normally carry a small bottle of olive oil to add to meals. It lifts the taste and is extremely energy efficient per gram – see “Food on the Bibbulmun.
The above mix should provide about 1600kJ per serve with 14.2g/0.5oz of protein.
Roasted edamame beans!
They are lightweight, vegan, gluten free and high in protein and fibre.
And look at that protein, nearly 50% by weight, and nearly 30% fibre.
However, they are extremely salty so, if you use these, roasted chickpeas or fava beans, omit the seasoning in your mix.
Method
At Home:
Dry fry mustard and cumin seeds until they start popping. Set aside to cool.
Combine the peanuts, currants, roasted edamame beans, mustard and cumin seeds with the turmeric powder, dried shallots, chillies and salt. Wrap in a small piece of biodegradable cling wrap or fold into baking paper.
Wrap the peas in a separate piece of cling wrap or baking paper.
Put the rice into a small zip loc bag. We eat about 45g/1.6oz grams of rice flakes per person ie 90g/3.2oz total. Add the wrapped spices and peas to the ziploc and seal.
In Camp:
The key to successfully rehydrating flattened rice is to run water through it and not let it sit in any standing water.
You will need an open weave cloth and a rubber band. We use a sieve at home, but a food-safe chux or cheesecloth is lighter on the track.
Put about 500ml/17oz of water in a pot and bring to the boil. Whilst the water is coming to the boil lay out the cloth flat and place your rice in the centre. Fold in the edges to form a pouch. Keep the pouch closed with a rubber band around the top.
Using a pot to help make the pouch (before boiling the water).
Put the peas in a cup.
When the water boils have the cup with the peas in it handy and pour half the water through the rice whilst holding up the pouch.
Pour the remaining water into the cup with the peas to rehydrate them.
(If your peas are not rehydrating quickly enough then you can put them in the pot at the start when you are heating the water).
Place the pouch in the empty pot resting on spoons to keep it off the bottom so that the rice doesn’t sit in any water that might drain. Place a lid on the pot and cover the cup with the peas to help keep in the heat.
Wait five minutes.
Remove the pouch from the pot and tip out any water that may have accumulated in the pot.
Drain all the water in the cup with the peas through the pouch (without losing your peas) then tip the peas into the pot. Give the pouch a gentle jiggle to remove any excess water, then open it and tip the rice into the pot and mix.
Next add and mix through the dry ingredients.
If you have it, add a tspn per serve of olive oil.
Mix again.
Enjoy!
Hack 1: For Those Who Cook on Trail:
If you cook in camp, rather than just boil water, this recipe is even yummier when you prepare it in the classical fashion, which includes frying onion, spices and potato in a little oil, and then adding in the rehydrated rice. Mix well, cover and let the rice absorb the flavours for a minute. This would make an excellent dinner as well as breakfast.
Hack 2: For Cold Soakers:
A reader told us that poha rehydrates so quickly that it’s ideal for cold soaking. Cover poha with scant water. Stir occasionally with a fork. The texture isn’t at all fluffy, unpleasantly chewy and heavy, with a strangely acidic flavour: not at to our liking, so don’t expect the same result. Our reader’s brand of poha rehydrated in less than five minutes and almost certainly tasted better, but ours took much longer, about 35 minutes, so test at home first. Mix in spices, oil, nuts, edamame and peas.
Cheat’s Hacks
Instant poha, very much like two minute noodles, is available in specialist grocers and you prepare it by adding a small amount of water and allowing it to rehydrate. Like instant noodles, these aren’t particularly healthy or nutritious, but you could easily toss in some dried edamame, jerky or peanuts for a quick and easy breakfast.
Instant poha:
Easy and quick
… But not as nutritious.
However, add peanuts, jerky or edamame, and it will be better!
