CHENNAI: In a year when millet is the magic word and the world is celebrating this no-fuss crop that’s grown across the country as the Year of the Millet, Savera Hotel decided to bring in the multiple benefits of millets to the tables at their restaurants. Though millets have found their way into Savera’s menu, it is a new dawn for them with this recent collaboration with ‘Millet Queen’ Indra Narayan. Indra has come on board as a consultant to train their chefs in innovating recipes. “I’d like to think that I am guiding them, not training,” she says humbly, as she settles down for a chat, taking us through her millet journey.
“An eye surgery opened my eyes,” she shares, adding that when she was battling obesity millets came to her rescue. It has been 11 years since Indra moved to millets. After years of trial and error, she gained popularity in 2017 through her Instagram account where she posts recipes of the dishes she creates. So far, she has doled out more than 1,500 recipes. Earlier this year, after creating a world record of making 555 millet activities in Coimbatore, a fellow chef introduced her to Nina Reddy, joint managing director of Savera Hotel. Fitness-conscious, Nina asked Indra to guide her chefs and also took it a step further by expressing interest in adding millet recipes to their restaurants Piano and Malgudi.
Millet creations
It has been three weeks since Indra began guiding the chefs; Savera has become family, she says. On the menu for the chef’s training is ragi vadai. “To enhance the taste, I have added drumstick leaves and tamarind,” she says.
For a population that finds comfort in rice, wheat and maida, making them accept millet as a healthier option is a challenge. Over the years, Indra has perfected the recipes by researching on what can make the dishes more appealing to a larger audience. One such quest led her to invent appam chaat – appams made with millet batter and stuffed with sprouts. This is one of the 40-plus creations that will find its place in Savera’s menu, based on customer preference.
Talking about their guests and what sells at Savera, executive chef Jesu Santiagu Lambert says, “We have had millet options on the breakfast menu at Piano for a year now. We present the millet menu in a cyclic format. So, we have idli, dosa, khichdi, poha, and upma made of millets. At Malgudi, we add one millet item to the thali. What we have observed is that the awareness of millet has still not reached people. But this year being the Year of Millet, awareness has increased and people are ready to give it a try.” Offering some statistics chefs Jesu says that in 1950, 40% of the staple food in India was millets. The scene changed in the 1980s when the consumption of rice tripled and wheat doubled.
Making the switch
The common concerns among people while making the switch are two-fold — millets are expensive, and what is the right way to shift to millets. “Invest in millets today. After five years, you won’t be spending on a doctor. It is expensive and can be hard for your tongue to adapt to. But by your 30s or 40s, you take to millets, you won’t be needing a doctor in your 50s,” she says, adding that millet batters are versatile. “You can make idli and dosa, add coconut milk to the batter to make appam. You can also make pizzas with it.” With more demand for millets, supply will increase and the price of the product is sure to decrease in the coming years, believe chef Jesu and Indra.
Now, how do you include millets in your diet? Indra has a simple solution and some steadfast rules. “Do not mix millets or millets with rice or wheat. This can lead to stomach issues. Whenever you prepare millets, make sure to soak them for a minimum of five hours. This is to ensure that the fibre blooms. Start by having a millet breakfast. Then, make sure your lunch comprises little rice and more vegetables and have chapati for dinner. Slowly you can shift to millets entirely. It took me three to six months to take to millets completely. The time may defer for each individual,” she explains, adding that one has to follow the open-boil cooking method to cook millets. Millets are gluten-free and can suit most of us. But if you have any health conditions, consult your doctor.
After laying down the rules, Indra serves us some of her creations, all made of little millets. On the menu are little millet sweet potato masala dosa, sprouted whole moong tikki, little millet flour murukku and coconut barfi made with coconut sugar. “I vouch for having seasonal fruits and vegetables. Sweet potato is in season right now and hence I have swapped it with potato for the filling. It is low in carbohydrates compared to potatoes,” she says. While sweets and savouries made of millets are not entirely healthy as they are deep-fried and contain sweeteners, Indra insists that anything in moderation is acceptable.
Save the recipes
The chef and his team are grateful to Indra and she, on the other hand, is thankful for getting a platform to educate the masses. When the dishes are introduced in the menu, guests will be made aware of the different types of millets and how to consume them. The millet menu will be cyclic.
“The training has been very useful. All these years we thought that making millet idli or dosa meant adding millet flour to the batter. We weren’t doing it right. Cereals and millets are different. Cereals are perudhanyam and millets are sirudhanyam. We learnt many technical things from ma’am. She brings in ten years of experience, and trial and error with millets. We will slowly introduce the recipes and see what is popular,” says chef Jesu.
Indra and Chef Jesu believe that we have moved away from our ancestral, traditional way of living. This is an opportunity to come back to it. “Indian cuisine has been bequeathed (to us) since many centuries. Now it is our responsibility to save these recipes that gave strength to our forefathers.
Saving the recipes does not mean keeping it in a diary. It needs to be encouraged in our daily life,” says chef Jesu. Indra concurs and says one can innovate a lot of dishes with millets too. “Now it is time to give a healthier version to society,” she signs off.
Follow Indra Narayan on Instagram: @indranarayan. Her book Millets Kitchen is available on amazon.in