This post is specifically for a friend who requested this most common and predominant baby food prepared in the southern part of India.
The credit for the recipe goes to my maid who helped me six months ago when I was confused while starting solids for my baby. Though there are a lot of options in the market these days, I wanted something which is not milk based and of course which is homemade.
Traditionally raagi is used in south India and as north Indians, the benefits of raagi are lesser known to us primarily because raagi was unavailable up north earlier. But now things have changed and the benefits of raagi are out for all to experience.
Raagi is a very good source of calcium and your baby will need it in abundance once he/she starts to crawl and starts teething. Traditionally this porridge is made only with raagi but I have decided to include other grains and pulses like moong daal, wheat, barley etc.. These are optional and you need not add these if you don't like. So without much ado here goes the recipe:
Ingredients:
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500gms Raagi millet
250gms wheat
250gms Green Gram (moong daal)
125gms barley
125gms brown rice
2 tbsp cumin seeds (jeera)
2tbsp carom seeds (ajwain)
Procedure
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1. Wash all except jeera and ajwain. Raagi needs much more time while washing since it has a lot of impurities. You will need to keep washing it till raagi looks clear to you in water. This will take about 4-5 washes.
2. Soak the washed grains accordingly:
Raagi - 8hrs
Wheat - 8hrs
Moong daal - 8hrs
Barley and brown rice - 2hrs
3. Drain barley and the rice and let them dry completely.
4. Drain the rest of the grains and tie them up separately in a clean muslin cloth. You will need to keep this until they start to sprout.
5. Once they have sprouted untie them and spread it on a neat surface or on a plate and dry them completely. Ensure that there's no moisture left in them.
6. Dry roast each of the ingredients. I do this for at least 5min each or till you start getting a pleasant aroma from them. You also do this to the cumin and ajwain seeds.
7. Finally you collect them all and grind them into a fine powder. If you are doing this at home then care should be taken that the powder yielded should be really fine, you may also need to sieve it till you get the perfect consistency. I prefer to do this in a flour mill rather than at home as the former involves less sieving.
Store in a air-tight container.
OPTIONAL:- I also add around 50-60 roasted and powdered almonds into the mixture above. But you can exclude this if you are concerned about nut allergy.
Cooking before feeding:-
--------------------------------
I take about three spoonfuls of this, mix it in sufficient water, add a pinch of salt along with a few drops of ghee and finally cook this on a small flame. Keep stirring this till the paste thickens to about the consistency of a porridge.
The credit for the recipe goes to my maid who helped me six months ago when I was confused while starting solids for my baby. Though there are a lot of options in the market these days, I wanted something which is not milk based and of course which is homemade.
Traditionally raagi is used in south India and as north Indians, the benefits of raagi are lesser known to us primarily because raagi was unavailable up north earlier. But now things have changed and the benefits of raagi are out for all to experience.
Raagi is a very good source of calcium and your baby will need it in abundance once he/she starts to crawl and starts teething. Traditionally this porridge is made only with raagi but I have decided to include other grains and pulses like moong daal, wheat, barley etc.. These are optional and you need not add these if you don't like. So without much ado here goes the recipe:
Ingredients:
----------------
500gms Raagi millet
250gms wheat
250gms Green Gram (moong daal)
125gms barley
125gms brown rice
2 tbsp cumin seeds (jeera)
2tbsp carom seeds (ajwain)
Procedure
---------------
1. Wash all except jeera and ajwain. Raagi needs much more time while washing since it has a lot of impurities. You will need to keep washing it till raagi looks clear to you in water. This will take about 4-5 washes.
Raagi - 8hrs
Wheat - 8hrs
Moong daal - 8hrs
Barley and brown rice - 2hrs
3. Drain barley and the rice and let them dry completely.
4. Drain the rest of the grains and tie them up separately in a clean muslin cloth. You will need to keep this until they start to sprout.
Cooking before feeding:-
--------------------------------
I take about three spoonfuls of this, mix it in sufficient water, add a pinch of salt along with a few drops of ghee and finally cook this on a small flame. Keep stirring this till the paste thickens to about the consistency of a porridge.
You can feed this porridge more than once a day but I generally do this once in the afternoon. Since this porridge contains many ingredients its quite filling in nature and the baby is likely to sleep for over 2-3hrs after consuming the same.
Apart from this I also feed my son oats for breakfast, wheat in the evening and rice & daal at night apart from about 20oz of milk everyday.
