Intro
As my little one grew from being just born to a couple of months old, I came to know she needed special foods.
One of these was "ragi" powder which was somewhat alien to me. I had never heard of it nor knew what it was made from. A little curiosity led me to the wiki link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusine_coracana
and I came to know that it's called "Finger Millet" in english :)
The powdered form of this grain was strikingly similar to ordinary flour but greyish in color and tasted bland.
Here is a quote from a website which details the nutritive value of Ragi and why its preferred for babies:
"Ragi is especially valuable as it contains the amino acid methionine, which is lacking in the diets of hundreds of millions of the poor who live on starchy staples such as cassava, plantain, polished rice, or maize meal. Finger millet can be ground and cooked into cakes, puddings or porridge. The grain is made into a fermented drink (or beer) in Nepal and in many parts of Africa. Thestraw from finger millet is used as animal fodder. It is also used for as a flavoured drink in festivals"
Nutritive value of Ragi per 100 g
Protein 7.3 g
Fat 1.3 g
Carbohydrate 72 g
Minerals 2.7 g
Calcium 344 mg
Fibre 3.6 g
Energy 328 kCal
To make Ragi porridge or mixture for baby
The preparation for this mixture involved mixing the powder in cold water (room temperature is fine, it must not be hot) and stirred till all lumps are gone. Once a desired consistency is achieved, place the vessel on a stove and bring it to boil slowly, continuously stirring till a thick soupy mixture is formed. Because it's bland in taste, a little milk and natural sugar (kalkandam in malayalam) is used to add a pleasant flavor. And there you have it ! yum yum for the baby :)
Homemade Ragi powder
Interestingly I wasn't able to locate this powder nor knew how it was made initially and that sparked a curiosity about it. Asking around relatives I came to hear the same old cliche dialog "It's a very tough job to make it" and I began to wonder why is that so. A little googling and digging further around led me to understand how it's made and that's what I would like to share in this post.
True it's a big time consuming but really satisfying to see the result in the end :)
Ok, so here it goes:
- Purchase Ragi seeds which is available in packet of 250/500/1kg grams from the grocery store. It's quite common in stores in bangalore as I came to know it's a staple crop in karnataka region. It looks like mustard seeds with a browny texture.
(Fresh ragi seeds)
- Soak these seeds in water overnight and see it swell up the next day.
- Next we need to germinate these seeds, the process is easy just take any 100% cotton cloth soaked in water. It must be a clean perforated cloth (veshti cloth, loosely woven cloth, muslin cloth, etc) and put the seeds in this center of the cloth and fold it from all ends to form a bag. Soak this bag in water again and let it hang in a well lit and ventilated area.
(Wet cloth bag holding the Ragi seeds for germination)
- Leave it hanging for a day and you should be able to find tiny roots popping out of the seeds the next day. This germination step is essential as it leads to maximum nutritive value. Open the bag and spread the seeds on a flat area or plate and let it to dry under the sun. In places were sun is not available, a easy solution is to keep the seeds under a 100W bulb and it will dry up almost instantly.
(Germinated Ragi seeds, tiny roots are seen sprouting)
- Now that the seeds are dry, turn it into fine powder in a mixer. Make sure that you pulse the mixer and take a few break to avoid excess heat generated by the mixer to cook the ragi powder. Once powdered, you'll notice that it's a mixture of brown and grey. We need to filter out the brown part and roots which are harmful for babies as it might lead to indigestion or stomach upset.
(Germinated dried Ragi seeds about to be ground to powder in mixer)
(Powdered Ragi from the mixer)
- Ok, we're almost there now :) The trick here now is to separate the brown outer skin of the seed from the grey soft stuff (known as endosperm technically) within the seed. The technique is to use the same perforated cloth as filter this time. Pour excess water into the powdered ragi that was previously prepared and pass it through the cloth. All the grey stuff which dissolved with water easily goes through the cloth while the brown skin and roots remain in the cloth. Strain the cloth well to extract all the liquid out. Repeat this step with the residue you get from each filtration till satisfied.
- Keep this filtered solution in a tall vessel for another day so that the grey ragi particles sediment down and a clear water layer is seen on top of it. When this is obeserved, carefully tilt the vessel and drain out the water on top leaving behind the grey sedimented ragi.
(Dissolved Ragi in a large vessel, ready to be sedimented)
(Residual waste Ragi as part of straining process)
- Spread this sedimented Ragi on a flat surface (plate or newspaper or anything flat) and let it dry to powder form. Again if sunlight is not plenty in ur area just turn on a 100W bulb over it.
- Thats it !!! you'll be able to see fine clear Ragi powder now.
So, effectively with 3-4 days time you get fine Ragi powder ready for your baby.
Once you get confident, you can speed up things and prepare Ragi powder in just 2 days alone.
Pros & Cons
Of course you can buy this powder ready made from your nearby flour mill or grocery store or even medical outlet. However, as you observe in this preparation, cleanliness of vessels, cloth and water is of concern and with packaged products, these could be at a compromise.
When made at home, utmost care and attention is given to these and you get a sense of comfort in the end of it all :)
Purpose of this experiment
Well, what started out as curiosity ended up in production of Ragi powder !
It's a traditional way of making Ragi and I thought I'd document it somewhere before being lost amongst the millions of traditions our ancestors had gained over the years. Hope it helps someone.
