Mumbai home chefs shed light on delicious regional dishes you can try

Puttu

Keralite
Any Keralite breakfast item is usually a rice-based one. The common items are idli, appam and dosa. But we also have idiyappam and puttu. Idiyappam or rice string hoppers are made with roasted rice flour mixed with ghee and boiling water to make the batter, which is then shaped with the help of an idiyappam maker.

Idiyappam with kadala curry

It can be had with a vegetable or meat stew, or simple watery coconut chutney. You put one layer of idiyappam, add a little coconut to it, top the hopper again, and steam it. Puttu is made with coarse rice powder, mixed with cold water, salt and coconut. This is steamed in a puttu maker and served with a kabuli chana kadala curry.

Nirmala Rajagopalan

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Luchi alu Pics/Ananya Banerjee

Bengali
In Bengali cuisine, we call it jol khabar or a snack, which can be had either for breakfast or as an early evening meal. The most common dish is luchi, which is a deep fried maida puri, eaten with alu chocchori, a simple, tempered potato sabji.

Chirer pulao

Luchi can also be had with begun (brinjal) bhaja. We also have a dish similar to the Maharashtrian pohe, called chirer pulao. It's made with poha, but is slightly sweet and uses cashew and raisins. It's sauteed in ghee, and then carrots, beans and potato are added to it.

Ananya Banerjee

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Dal pakwan

Sindhi
A Sindhi breakfast is packed with flavours. Dal pakwan is the most common item, made with chana dal and flat puris of maida. Masala loli is a pancake that is made with flour, onion, green chillis, coriander and anardana. The dough is kneaded with ghee. Loli is cooked twice. First, you need to roll it halfway and cook it on a tava.

Pic/Poonam Shahani

Then, you roll it to make it even flatter and cook it on the tava, again. You can also make a simple salt and pepper loli. The ingredients of loli are also used to make masala egg omelette.

Poonam Shahani

Call: 9920014925 to place an order for Sindhi meals in SoBo

Akhoi cream gur. Pic/O'tenga

Assamese
Assamese breakfast or jolpan is normally a rice-based simple meal. It's either sticky rice (bora saul or kumol saul) or flattened rice called sira. You also find puffed rice in akhoi cream gur, which is not as smooth as the kurmura. We have it mixed with doi (curd, during summer) or fresh cream, and sprinkle jaggery on top.

Joyee Mahanta

Lusi bhaji or puri with mixed vegetable bhaji, or potato bhaji is a newer breakfast option. There's also xandoh guri, which is made with rice powder, that is eaten mixed with hot milk. It's the Assamese version of porridge.
Call: 9619518938 for home delivery (O' Tenga)

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