This year, 2023, has been recognised as International Year of Millets to promote awareness of millets and to encourage people to use millets in their day to day diet.
Millets are very nutritious grains, rich in protein, fibre and healthy fats and are alkaline in nature. It is also gluten free. Millets can be substituted for the rice and wheat in almost all recipes. Most commonly used millets are ragi (finger millet) and jowar (sorgum). In recent times, people have started using millets like samai (little millet), varagu (kodo millet), thinai (foxtail millet) and kudiravali (barnyard millet) etc.
The best way of cooking millets would be soak and cook it like rice. In fact, it is best of way to eat millets as we can get the complete benefit of the high fibre present in millets. Unfortunately, since we are so used to the texture and flavour of rice, many may not appreciate millets instead of rice.
It would be easier to include millets in every day diet when we start making common and easy to make dishes like idli, dosa, pongal, khichidi etc.
Few days back, I made this moong, millet and capsicum dosa for breakfast. Foxtail millet (thinai) gives a crisp texture to dosa. I have made adai also using this millet. This is a very ideal dish for breakfast or evening snack for children as this is a wholesome and complete dish by itself. Just some chutney or idli podi or even some curd will be a good accompaniment for this dosa. It would be best to serve this dosa hot (from the tawa straight to the plate).
Ingredients
| Ingredients | Quantity |
| Whole moong | 1 cup |
| Foxtail millet ( thinai) | ½ cup |
| Capsicum` | 1 cup |
| Green chillies | 2 |
| Ginger | 2 inches |
| Curry leaves | 1 cup |
| Tamarind | Little |
| Salt | 1&1/2 tsp or to taste |
| Sesame oil (gingely oil) | 4 – 5 tbsps |
| Cuisine | South Indian |
| Preparation time | 15 mins |
| Soaking time | 6-8 hrs |
| Cooking time | 20-25 mins |
| Number of dosas | 10 |
| Author | Anuradha Balasubramanian |
| Key words | Millets, Dosai, Gluten free, Vegan breakfast, protein rich recipe |
Method
- Wash well (2-3 times) and soak moong and millet for 6-8 hours.
- Drain and discard the soaking water.
- Transfer the soaked ingredients to a mixer jar.
- Add capsicum, green chillies, ginger, curry leaves, salt, tamarind and 1 cup of water and grind to a smooth batter.
- Heat a dosa tawa, brush it with some oil. Take a ladle full of batter and spread into a uniform circle. Spread some oil around the dosa and cook till the under- side turns crisp.
- Flip the dosa gently, add little more oil if required and cook till the other side also turns crisp.
- Serve the dosa hot and crisp along with any chutney/ idli podi/ yogurt.
Nutritive value for 1 dosa
| Energy/ calories | 126 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 13 gms |
| Protein | 5 gms |
| Total fat | 5.5 gms |
| Total fibre | 4.6 gms |
Notes
- Any other millet variety can be used instead of foxtail millet.
- If you want to make it for school tiffin box, add some chopped vegetables and spread it little thicker like othappam to make it soft and moist.
- To make it more attractive for kids, add pizza sauce, vegetable toppings, grated cheese and make it as pizza.
- Instead of green capsicum, red, yellow or orange can also be used.
- Any keerai variety ( greens) can be used instead of curry leaves.