Millet and Avocado Porridge
INGREDIENTS:
-
0,25 cup millet groats
-
about 0,5 cup coconut drink
- 0,25 avocado
-
1-2 teaspoons almond spread
- several strawberries
-
1 teaspoon honey
Buy Spring and summer are perfect to enrich your diet with seasonal fruits and vegetables that provide plenty of vitamins. I try to include them in every meal. Local markets abound in delicious products, just look around and look for reliable suppliers. I have recently started adding strawberries to my sweet breakfasts, which taste best at this time of the year! Try this recipe for millet porridge with avocado, strawberries and almond spread 🙂
The bowl takes about twenty minutes and most of that is hands off, while the groats sit under a lid. Blended warm, it comes out closer to a pudding than to a cereal, which is why the avocado and the almond spread sit on top so well. If you would rather have breakfasts like this one written into a plan with a shopping list to match, that is exactly what the Diet & Training by Ann app does.
Preparation
I cooked the millet groats in coconut drink. Then I added honey and blended until smooth. I transferred the millet porridge into a bowl, topped with sliced avocado, almond paste and strawberry pieces. 🙂 Yummy!
Rinse the groats before they go into the pan
Millet groats keep a thin coating from milling that tastes bitter once it is cooked, and a quarter of a cup is little enough that a single bitter note carries through the whole bowl. Put the measured groats into a fine sieve and run cold water through them, turning them with your fingers, until the water stops coming out cloudy. Then pour boiling water from the kettle over them and drain again. That second step is what most people skip, and it is the one that makes the difference between a sweet, milky porridge and one with a faint edge to it.
Cooking it in coconut drink, not water
Half a cup of coconut drink to a quarter cup of groats looks like too little liquid, and it is not. Millet drinks up roughly twice its volume, so the pan goes on the smallest burner, lid on, for about fifteen minutes, and the last of the liquid disappears in the final couple of minutes. Plant drinks catch on the base far more readily than water does, so keep the heat genuinely low and give it a stir twice along the way. When the liquid is gone, take the pan off the heat and leave it covered for five minutes; the grains finish swelling in their own steam and the texture turns even.
Getting it smooth
Blend it while it is still warm. Cooked millet stiffens as it cools, and cold groats tear under the blades instead of turning creamy. A hand blender straight in the pan is enough, and the honey goes in off the heat, just before blending, where it dissolves into the warm mass without being boiled. If the porridge holds its shape too firmly on the spoon, add a spoonful of the coconut drink and blend again. It should fall slowly off the spoon rather than sit on it in a lump.
Choosing the avocado
A quarter of an avocado is all this bowl needs, so it is worth having one that is ripe on the day. Hold it in your palm and press gently with the whole hand rather than with a fingertip; it should give a little all over. Fingertips find soft spots that are just bruises. The other reliable check is the small stem cap at the top: if it comes away easily and the flesh under it is green, the fruit is ready, and if that patch is brown, the inside is past its best. The rest of the avocado keeps in the fridge for a day, cut side down on a plate or with the pit left in and a little lemon juice over the surface. There is more on picking and using them in the post about avocado.
Swapping the fruit through the year
Strawberries are here for a few weeks in June and they are the reason this version exists, but the base takes any soft fruit. Raspberries collapse into the warm porridge and turn it pink, blueberries hold their shape, and in autumn a grated apple with cinnamon works in the same place. The blog has the same base finished several other ways, so it is easy to keep the breakfast and change the top:
- millet porridge with strawberries and blueberries, if you want both berries at once
- millet porridge with raspberries
- plum and cinnamon millet porridge, for the end of summer
- savory millet porridge with herbs, when you would rather not have a sweet breakfast at all
Making it ahead
The base is worth cooking in a bigger batch. Four times the groats and the drink, blended smooth and kept in a closed jar, will sit in the fridge for two or three days. It sets firm in there, so warm a portion gently with a spoonful of coconut drink stirred through and it comes back to the same texture. Add the avocado, the almond spread and the fruit only when you are about to eat, because sliced avocado darkens within an hour and there is no way of talking it out of that. Portioning breakfasts in advance is much easier when the week is planned; the Diet & Training by Ann app builds the plan and the shopping list together.
Millet and avocado porridge
Ingredients
Method
- Rinse the millet groats in a fine sieve under cold water until the water runs clear, then pour boiling water over them and drain.
- Cook the groats in the coconut drink over low heat with the lid on for about 15 minutes, stirring twice, until the liquid is absorbed.
- Take the pan off the heat and leave it covered for 5 minutes.
- Stir in the honey and blend until smooth, adding a spoonful of coconut drink if the porridge is too stiff.
- Transfer to a bowl and top with sliced avocado, almond spread and strawberry pieces.
Notes
Frequently asked questions
Yes, and twice over. Millet keeps a thin coating from milling that turns bitter in cooking, so run cold water through the groats in a fine sieve until it stops coming out cloudy, then pour boiling water from the kettle over them and drain. Skipping the second rinse is the usual reason a millet porridge tastes faintly bitter.
Half a cup of coconut drink to a quarter cup of groats. Millet absorbs roughly twice its own volume, so that looks like too little in the pan but is right. Cook it on the smallest burner with the lid on for about fifteen minutes, stir twice so it does not catch on the base, then leave it covered off the heat for five minutes to finish swelling.
You can, and it becomes a different breakfast: grainy like a classic porridge rather than smooth like a pudding. Mash it against the side of the pan with a fork while it is still warm and it will loosen up a little. What does not work is blending it cold, because set millet tears under the blades instead of turning creamy.
Any plant drink or milk cooks the groats the same way. Almond drink is the closest swap, oat drink is noticeably sweeter so cut the honey down, and cow’s milk gives the thickest result. Water works too, but the porridge loses the creaminess that carries the avocado and the almond spread, so it is worth adding a spoonful of the spread into the blend in that case.
The blended base keeps two or three days in a closed jar in the fridge. It sets firm in there, so warm a portion gently with a spoonful of the drink stirred through and it comes back. Add the avocado, the almond spread and the fruit only when you are about to eat, because sliced avocado darkens within an hour. Planning breakfasts a few days ahead is much easier with a written plan; the Diet & Training by Ann app builds the week and the shopping list together.
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