Indian Breakfast Pairings – Fitz and Poha

I’m a huge believer that a lot of Indian breakfast dishes will go great with sparkling wine – not all of course, but enough so let it be known that this could be the start of a mini series on this topic!

A breakfast fave and anytime dish in a number of parts of India is called Poha (pawa) or flaked rice, which takes minutes to make. The jury is out on the non-negotiables that supplement it and a healthy debate within my family led to one of my cousins calling me ‘pohelier’ as we photographed different people’s versions and tasted them.

Truth be told, the version in this article isn’t my perfect version, but the best I could do with the ingredients I had to hand. As it can be quite dry, and many people may have it with a bit of sauce, I went for an easy-drinker to pair. Fitz has a delightfully golden colour with apple and peach notes.

Why it worked

I didn’t have any sauce with this version, so it did come out quite dry – and the fruitiness of the wine alleviated this.

Also, this poha wasn’t that spicy – the curry leaves and black mustard seeds didn’t come to the party with their usual flavour, but the chilli did – this wine helped cleanse the palate.

About halfway through, I added some more lime to the poha, which made it a little less dry and complemented the apple notes.

Poha makes it to my breakfast/brunch table regularly, so I do expect to be back with another wine and another version of poha to boot and let’s see how they fare!

Photo credit: Rupa Datta