Ragi for breakfast

I love eating ‘Ragi Idiyappam’ for breakfast. It’s such a healthy dish and it fills me up enough to last until lunchtime without any snacking in-between. For those of you who don’t know what ‘Ragi Idiyappam’ is, its dried vermicelli made out of ragi. The English term for Ragi is finger millet and it is also referred to as African millet. I buy the ‘ANIL’ brand ragi idiyappam which is available at the local grocery store.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups ragi idiyappam
1/8 cup green gram / moong dal
¼ cup grated coconut
2 tsp brown sugar / jaggery

Cooking time: 30 mins

Serves 1

Soak the ragi idiyappam in water (room temperature) for 5 mins and drain. Place it in a steamer (idli vessel is handy) and steam it for about 10 mins. Meanwhile, cook the dal in about ½ cup water until its cooked through and drain. Make sure that it does not get over-cooked and mushy. Now, toss the cooked Idiyappam, dal, grated coconut and brown sugar together and serve.

The ragi while steaming tends to stick to the container (the idli vessel for instance). To avoid this you can rub a little bit of oil on the container before placing the soaked ragi in it to steam. Other than the oil used to coat the container, there is no oil in this dish. The fat content of this dish is very low and I get to eat ragi which is otherwise absent in my diet. As an alternative, you can even make other dishes like upma out of ragi idiyappam. I have tasted bread made out of ragi flour. It was a substitute for rye bread. and it tasted good.

I have heard and read that millets are a good and healthy source of energy. A friend of mine once mentioned that it is particularly good for diabetic patients since it releases energy slowly while being digested. I’ll try to write more about millets at a later date.

Nutritional value of Ragi per 100 g

Protein 7.3 g
Fat 1.3 g
Carbohydrate 72 g
Minerals 2.7 g
Calcium 3.44 g
Fibre 3.6 g
Energy 328 kCal