I am really digging into millets these days 🙂 . What I really love about having millet based meals is that there is absolutely no drowsiness which you get sometimes after eating wheat or white rice. Especially if you end up overeating a bit 😛 . I am enjoying experimenting with millets in my daily cooking. They are easy to cook with and can be made interesting in many ways!
Millets are amazing for health. If you aren’t already eating them add them to your diet. Millets have high nutritional content. They provide good fats, B vitamins, calcium, iron, potassium, zinc, magnesium. They even contain good amount of protein and dietary fiber. They protect you against chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Keep cholesterol levels in check. They are gluten free and are good for you if you suffer from seasonal respiratory allergies like me. All across India you will find people have been consuming millets in some or the other form since ages.. But in an effort to adopt a modern lifestyle we have slowly left behind these healthy foods adopting a diet high in wheat and rice. But now Millets are back and it is good to see a variety of Indian millets readily available in markets these days.
Here is a simple recipe of a millet salad made with Kodo millet (Telugu- Arikelu, Tamil- Varagu, Kannada- Arka). It can be eaten cold or warm. I hope this simple recipe encourages you to eat millets 🙂
Serves 1-2
Ingredients
1/2 cup kodo Millet
1 cup florets of cauliflower(cut into very tiny florets)
1 Medium potato (cut into small cubes)
1 small Onion dices
1 green chilli chopped
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp Turmeric powder / Haldi
2 Tbs Olive oil (any vegetable oil would do)
Handful basil leaves ( I have small hands 🙂 )
Salt to taste
Juice of a small lemon
Steps
1. Cook the millet with twice the amount of water in a covered vessel on low flame. Add 1/2 tsp salt to the cooking water. Cook to the point that each grain is fluffy and separate. There should be no water remaining with the millets once cooked.
2. Chop onion into thin pieces. Cut cauliflower into tiny florets. Potato into cubes of similar size.
3. In a pan heat Olive oil. Add cumin seeds and allow them to sizzle for a few seconds. Add chopped onion and cook till transparent. Stir in the chopped green chilli.
4. Add potato cubes and saute for a minute on low flame. Add the cauliflower bits and stir well.
5. Sprinkle turmeric powder and mix it with the veges. This gives some color to the dish. Season this mix with Salt. We cook the cauliflower and potato in oil for sometime to get some crunch on the veggies. Do this on low flame and stir frequently not allowing the veggies to stick to the pan.
6. After 1-2 minutes sprinkle some (very less) amount of water on top of the veggies and cover and cook them on low flame.
7. The veggies are cooked when you can slice through the potato & cauliflower with a blunt spoon. This could take 2-5 minutes. Take the veggie off heat once done.
8. Mix the desired amount of millets with the vegetable mix. And stir everything together.
9. Stir in some basil leaves to the mix and keep some for garnish.
10. Add a generous amount of lemon juice before serving.
Millet salad is ready! See eating millets is so simple! 🙂
THE VEGAN BIRDIE 