Poee

A Goan leavened pocket bread fermented with toddy and baked on the floor of the oven.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 250 g maida, which is plain white flour
• 250 g whole wheat flour
• 300 ml toddy, or 300 ml warm water with 7 g dried yeast
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• wheat bran, for dusting

Method

1. IT IS FERMENTED WITH TODDY FOR TWO DAYS AND BAKED ON THE OVEN FLOOR, and both halves of that come from its article: poee was prepared BY FERMENTING IT WITH TODDY FOR TWO DAYS, ROLLING IT INTO A BALL, FLATTENING IT, AND BAKING IT ON THE FLOOR OF A WOOD-FIRED OVEN. Toddy is the sap of the palm, which ferments by itself; it is the leaven and the flavour at once.
2. WHICH IS ALSO WHAT SEPARATES IT FROM PAO. Its article is explicit: this DIFFERENTIATES IT FROM PAO, WHICH USES THE SAME DOUGH BUT IS BAKED IN A PAN. Same flour, same ferment, different floor. One comes out with a pocket and a scorched base; the other comes out as a roll.
3. HALF WHITE FLOUR AND HALF WHOLEMEAL, WHICH THE ARTICLE STATES. The bread is made from HALF-MAIDA AND HALF-WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR. The wholemeal is why it tastes of something; the maida is why it blows up hollow.
4. WITHOUT TODDY, USE YEAST AND GIVE IT THE TWO DAYS ANYWAY. Seven grams in three hundred millilitres of warm water, a teaspoon of sugar, and then the dough into the fridge for forty-eight hours. The long cold ferment is not the same as palm sap but it is closer than two hours on the counter.
5. KNEAD IT WET AND LEAVE IT ALONE. A slack dough, ten minutes of kneading, then covered. Knock it back once a day.
6. ROLL INTO BALLS, FLATTEN, AND REST THEM ON BRAN. Eight balls, pressed out to a centimetre, dusted underneath so they lift off. Half an hour under a cloth.
7. THE OVEN GOES AS HOT AS IT WILL GO, WITH A STONE OR A HEAVY TRAY IN IT. The article says poee NEEDS HOTTER TEMPERATURES than pao and so is baked before it, and that in a wood-fired oven THE BAKING TIME IS UNDER A MINUTE. A domestic oven at its maximum will take three or four, and the stone is what stands in for the floor.
8. SLIDE THEM STRAIGHT ONTO THE HOT SURFACE. They balloon within a minute and the pocket forms as the steam has nowhere to go. Take them out while they are still pale and soft; its article's word for the bread is soft, with a pocket, and a crisp poee is an overbaked one.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under India · All recipes