Ragi & Jowar Porridge / Sweet Millet Porridge

Millet flours make excellent porridges, grubs, and cereals. They are cooked slightly with water, sweetened a little with jaggery or palm sugar, and served with warm milk. This makes an energizing breakfast, and even a quick and nutritious dinner that's both light and filling. In terms of healthy dessert options, this is really quite a nice one! 

My mom makes different kinds of porridges with millets and whole grains. I have written about one of them here. This is another very simple version with just two types of millets. To tone down the earthy aromas of the millets and to increase the flavor of the porridge, freshly ground cardamom and mace (javetri) are added. 

As a dessert, this is truly a yummy alternative!

Ingredients (serves 4):

1. 1/4 cup ragi flour / finger millet flour
2. 1/4 cup jowar flour / sorgham flour
3. 2 tablespoons ground flax-seed
4. 1/2 cup palm sugar (add more for a sweeter version) / or use brown sugar or jaggery
5. 13-15 green cardamoms
6. 1 mace / javetri
7. 1.25 cups milk
8. some raisins

Preparation:

1. Dry roast the cardamom and mace until the cardamoms swell. Remove from heat, cool and grind to a powder. 
2. Mix/whisk the jowar flour, flax-seed and ragi flour in 2 cups of water
3. Boil 2.5 cups of water in a medium-sauce pan. Add the dissolved flour mixture to the boiling water and mix well. Keep stirring and cooking on low-medium heat until the mixture thickens a little and bubbles. 
4. Add the palm sugar and stir for 5 minutes until it dissolves. Continue to cook the porridge until it bubbles. 
5. Add the ground cardamom and mace powder and mix. Remove from heat. 
6. Heat milk for 2 minutes in the microwave. Add the hot milk to the porridge and mix. Add as much milk as you like to get the porridge to the consistency of your liking. 

Serve the porridge with a sprinkling of raisins in a bowl or cup depending on the consistency. The porridge thickens as it cools, so dilute with warm milk if it takes a while to serve.