Millets - 5 Recipes To Turn This Ancient Food Into Modern Meal

The family of grains is enjoying a new spurt of fame. How will you cook them?

- Shirin Mehrotra

How's this for a superhero origin story? Back in the 1990s, HD Deve Gowda, India's Prime Minister at the time, let it be known that ragi mudde - ragi balls dunked in sambar - was his favourite dish. Restaurants across the country added the Karnataka staple to their menus, as Prime Minister's Delight. It was probably ragi's first brush with fame.

Cut to today. Ragi (finger millet), along with sorghum (jowar), pearl millet (bajra), barnyard millet (sanwa) and other grains in the millets family, are on Michelin-starred menus. Chefs excitedly talk about their experiments with them. Nutritionists are relieved people are asking about them. They're in snacks, desserts, fancy breakfast buffets. The United Nations General Assembly even announced 2023 as the year of millets.

Millets have enjoyed little bursts of fame every few decades. But this is a welcome wave. Millets are lighter on the stomach and the Earth. You don't even have to wait long for them to cook, like your grandma did. Like rice or pasta, they need a water, some salt and a little bit of your attention. And modern recipes to play with. Here goes...

Mixed millet uttapam by chef Vanshika Bhatia

Try them at breakfast

I try to replace regular grains with millets when possible, says chef Vanshika Bhatia, who worked at Gaggan in Bangkok and is now at Delhi's OMO Café. Her interest in fermented foods from India's southern states led her to experiment with millets. I realised that even dosa and uttapam can be made using millets. I removed the rice, kept the lentils and fermented the batter in the same way. The flavour was mind-blowing and kept me full for longer, she says. She also uses ragi flour in sourdough bread and crackers.

INGREDIENTS

50 gms ragi millet, 50 gms foxtail millet, 25 gms urad dal, 3 gms methi seeds, salt, ½ tsp red chilli powder