When is millet really millet, and perhaps not millet?

Hi,

Cookbook club selection is Fresh from Poland, it has several recipes calling for millet used as creamy breakfast pudding, as a component in bread and stuffing for vegetables.

Is this the millet like I used to feed my pet bird years ago?

I recall reading millet can be a generalized term for a range of grains.

If I encountered this grain in a pudding, I have no recollection or never identified it as such. I certainly never saw it in salads, either. As a component in bread, possibly, but not confident to bet the farm.

In a Polish (Eastern European) context, is millet the bird food or might be something else.

Thanks for any clarification.

Regards,
Cathy2

I am sure I have fixed millet before, but not in ages. You can use it in bread and I have a recipe for millet with chickpeas and veggies that I am sure I have fixed, but that was back when I cooked with a lot more beans than I do now, and it is something I would fix in the wintertime. You used to be able to get millet in bulk at Whole Foods, but there bulk food section has been out of service since the pandemic. I have never heard of millet being used in Polish cooking, but I am not an expert on Polish cooking.

At the Polish stores, look for kasza jaglana. That should be it. Don't know whether it's the same millet as bird food, though.

Binko wrote:At the Polish stores, look for kasza jaglana. That should be it. Don't know whether it's the same millet as bird food, though.

Thanks!

I have a feeling Cynthia may have some ideas regarding millet.

Regards,
Cathy2

Hi,

Thanks, Binko for the tip. I found several different packages of kasza jaglana. I went with one box with several 100 mg packets of millet. I thought I could use some and perhaps share, if I didn't like it.

This morning, I cooked 100 grams in two cups milk and a pat of butter. The instructions suggested cooking until the milk (and a grated apple) until the millet mostly absorbed liquid, then whirl it in a blender with additional milk and some honey. To further enhance it, to make a small quantity of freshly cooked blueberries plus vanilla flavored honey.

There were so many flavor additions, it began to remind of a Judy Holiday movie. Judy worked as a telephone operator taking messages and calling people to awaken them. Her cute, younger sister worked at trade shows. As a bonus would bring home product samples of the edible variety. One was a box of bran cereal with a serving suggestion of strawberries and cream. Of course, those additions would make cardboard more delicious.

I effectively removed all the delicious additions and did not even blend the millet, either. The cooked millet was eaten with butter and sugar. It was like eating grits (or plain mashed potatoes or cream of wheat) with very little of its own flavor. The butter and sugar made it more palatable.

The texture was a little chalky if you ground it between your teeth, which is likely why they suggested blending. If you simply let it quickly pass through your mouth and down your throat, it is not all that noticeable. It is also possible, I should have cooked it longer.

There are a few more millet recipes to check. My first impression is favorable, or at least not dismissive.

Regards,
Cathy2

I have made millet. In US recipes, and purchased in US groceries - healthfood or regular. It was always the same as the bird seed.

The big difference between millet for human consumption and millet for animals is that hulls are removed for people. Birds are quite good at separating the hulls and dropping them on the ground. Hulls are also removed for oats, barley and buckwheat for direct human consumption.

Yes, same as bird seed, but, as ekreider notes, hulless for those of us without beaks.

Very interesting story (I saw somewhere) last week about how China made the transition from millet to wheat. Northern China in the old times was millet country: it's cold up there, and pretty dry. Millet was the only available grain that they could grow. Wheat was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent and took a long time to migrate to other places, especially China. Corn hadn't arrived yet from the New World, and rice needs heat and wet. So: millet.

But ancient wheats gradually made their way north and east along the trade routes across the Stans into China proper, and apparently as soon as the locals learned how to manage wheat, they made the switch from millet to wheat. And the switch from gruel to noodles!

So, C2, your experience with the rather bland aspects of millet mirror those of the centuries of Chinese experience. Given the choice between millet and wheat, between gruel and noodles, I bet any of us would go for the noodles!

Geo

Hi,

Last cookbook club meeting, the book du jour was Mark Bittman's Thanksgiving.

Flipping through the pages, the recipe that caught my eye was an Autumn Millet Casserole. It was a layer of cubed butternut squash, a cup of fresh cranberries scattered about, then a cup of millet that had been toasted in olive oil, followed by salt, pepper, sage, cup of hot water followed by honey or maple syrup spread on top. Wrapped in foil to cook for 45 minutes. Simultaneously, I toasted the butternut squash seeds, which I later scattered on the casserole.

We liked this, though the millet seemed crunchy to me. Today, I liked it so much more because the reheating in the microwave finished cooking the millet. Where yesterday it was crunchy, today it was far more tender. Never would have thought to combine butternut squash with cranberries, it is a winning sweet-sour combination.

This recipe called for 3/4 cup millet. I rounded it up to one cup to finish the millet bought recently. I am not in a race to buy more millet, though my recent experience was more favorable. I still think I am eating bird food, especially yesterday and not so much today.

Regards,
Cathy2