When my mom was visiting us to take care of me postpartum, I didn’t realize how much of a huge help she would be. I declined her offer to come, but VJ insisted that she come to take care of me and help me learn about motherhood. She took such good care of me that I cried for days and missed her so much. Every day she cooked for us, warm fresh food despite us saying that we would be okay with leftovers. She would feel so bad when she served us leftovers that she would cook fresh food again the next day. I’m so lucky that VJ and I are in a better condition financially then what he and I grew up in. We weren’t dirt poor but we were on a budget. We were limited to only a few groceries for that month. Though we are on a budget now too, I can still get all the veggies I want and cook anything VJ wants to eat or I want to eat. And mom was absolutely delighted when she got to cook and feed us. She made 3 and sometimes even 4 meals for us. When she left I cried for days, because I missed warm food. I think I gained more weight after I gave birth rather than before.

She made us a ton of snacks which were over in like a few days. My favorite that she made was Attukula (Poha) masala. It’s like chiwda but not the storage kind. I don’t like attukulu that much, but mom kept making them every day that I loved it so much. I guess mom added the special ingredient of love. So today in the evening VJ and I got hungry. At first, I told VJ I’ll make sweetcorn but then I asked him if he wanted to eat attukulu masala and he said yep. I regretted asking it immediately because I felt an immediate wave of sadness hit me. I miss my mommy so much. I don’t know how everyone manages it, but I keep finding it harder as I spend more years away from her. It disappoints me that Arlo will never get to eat from her hands. My mom hand feeds me even now (well I have to beg beg beg beg, absolutely beg her). Again, I miss my mommy. Before the flood-gates open, here’s my mom’s Attukula Masala recipe.

 

Ingredients

Sanna Attukulu (Thin Poha or Thin Flattened Rice) – 2 cup

Onion – 1/2 chopped thinly

Green chilies – 2 chopped into bite-sized pieces (optional)

Coriander leaves – 2 tablespoons

Salt – As required

Red Chili Powder – 1/2 tablespoon

Lime – 1 whole

Peanuts – 1/4 cup

Oil – 1 tablespoon

Sev or Aloo Bhujiya – 1/4 cup

 

How to Make

Step 1: Add the chopped onions, green chilies, coriander leaves in a bowl. In a pan, dry roast the peanuts until they darken a bit and also give this amazing smell.

Step 2: To the onions and peanuts mixture add the salt, red chili powder and squeeze the lime.

Step 3: In the same pan used to roast the peanuts add the tablespoon of oil and add the attukulu (poha) and fry them until they shrivel up (I used organic red poha that was a bit thick, so I let it get browned a bit).

Step 4: Add the poha to the onions mixture and give it a toss. Add the aloo bhujiya or sev mix it up and serve in a bowl with tea or coffee.

Tips:

1. You can use more lemon.
2. You can putnalla pappu (dalia dal) too with the peanuts. You needn’t roast these and just add them directly.