Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Ogi Cakes


This morning I made my first ever fermented millet hotcakes. Millet is a cous-cous-sized seed originally cultivated in northern China. It is 11% protein by weight, gluten free, and provides folate, niacin, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, calcium, selenium, zinc, and iron.
Starting on Sunday, I soaked the whole millet kernels in water and whey. Monday night, I strained and ground the millet to a paste in the food processor. Then I added more water and whey and let it sit overnight to ferment. Tuesday morning, I mixed together about two tablespoons of the now-bubbly millet with a tablespoon of organic creamline yogurt, an egg and a pinch of salt, and fried it in two batches in Amish butter. The cakes were surprisingly light, fluffy, bright yellow and crisp. Hard to believe they were whole grain! I spread them with raw honey to get the enzymes to break down the carbohydrates in the millet. Then I sauteed some shredded chicken (baked last night two hours at 350 F, stuffed with lemon, onion, garlic and ginger) with a teaspoon of Kaeng Par curry paste and two tablespoons of whole coconut milk. This chicken, some fresh yogurt and half a diced avocado topped off the honeyed millet cakes. Sour, sweet, spicy, creamy, and very filling. I could have used a little more salt to wake up all of the flavors, but a breakfast like this could wake me up any day.

2 comments:

Remember the Alamode said...

Hi Deborah, I do love your site! This recipe sounds delicious. Millet is a grain I want to learn to cook more often--it's supposed to be very alkaline and thus great for the system and fermenting it would just add more value to an already great grain. I recommend that you try, if you haven't already the recipe in nourishing traditions that is quite like this one. It's called Idli (Indian) and it's a mixture of fermented brown rice, and lentils that are blended and then steamed in egg poaching cups. Serve them with a raita type sauce. So delicious. It takes about 2 days, but well worth it.

Remember the Alamode said...

Hi Deborah, I am going to make ogi cakes, but had a question on the proportion of millet to water for soaking. Also, you use some of the ogi batter mixed with egg and yogurt. What did you do with the rest of the ogi starter? Is it something you keep alive like sourdough starter?