We’ve made idlis and dosas with little millet, kodo millet, proso millet, pearl millet, foxtail millet, finger millet and even made them with teff, which it turns out, is also a kind of millet. Oh, and of course we have made them with paddy rice. (Our millet-farming friends insist on calling what generally goes by the name of rice, “paddy rice” to distinguish it from some of the millets which in the local language are actually called varieties of rice, e.g. సామ బీయ్యము or वरी चावल (little millet rice), కొర్ర బీయ్యము (foxtail millet rice), सामक चावल (barnyard millet rice). In this case the term “rice” is used not as a name for the grain but for the whole form of the grain, as opposed to cracked grain (ravva), flattened grain (poha) or flour (atta).
Posts Tagged ‘teff’
Teff Idli and Dosa!
In Recipes on 13 February 2016 at 3:11 amSometimes our millet dosas remind us of injera, a traditional Ethiopian dish we ate a few years ago when visiting friends in Boston. Khiyali and her friends enjoyed chanting, “eat the plate! eat the plate!” The injera was the edible plate on which the various toppings were served. After tearing off pieces of injera and scooping up the steamed and stir-fried vegetables, the rest of the plate, which had absorbed some of the flavors from the toppings, was fun to eat up all by itself.
Out of curiosity I bought a bag of teff at David’s Natural Market when I was in Maryland but did not get around to finding out how to make anything with it. By the time I left for India the bag was still unopened so I brought it along with me. When I searched for recipes for injera it seemed I needed teff flour and not whole teff. Of course this grain is so tiny it is almost like flour but anyway that gave me the free pass to try using it like all the other grains in my collection – to make dosas! How different could they be?