This double whammy was what really led to my search for an alternative to my regular breakfast of cereal or oats with milk; something lower in sugar as well as calcium and ready to make in minutes. Since I like oats a lot, I didn't want to give it up, and thought that something made with it would really fit the bill.
Inspiration Strikes
Earlier this year I did a 5K run, at the end of which runners were rewarded to a nourishing Pongal breakfast sponsored by a local restaurant. The soft, well cooked runny rice and dal seasoned with whole black peppers, curry leaves and cashews, with a river of ghee flowing through it was a delicious way to replenish spent calories, and then some.
That was the source of inspiration to try making such a pongal at home for breafast, not with rice, but oats. I turned to my favorite book of Tamilian cooking, 'Dakshin', knowing that it had a pongal recipe. I substituted the rice and moong dal with an equivalent amount of oats by volume, and used just a teaspoon of ghee, brought way down from the stated amount. I absolutely loved the result and I am quite hooked to it now.
Method to make Pongal Style Oats
Cook about a cup of steel-cut Irish oats with four cups of water. You can even do this in a pressure cooker. When you are ready to make the pongal, make a coarse powder with a pinch of cumin seeds and a few black peppercorns in a mortal and pestle. Grate a little ginger to yield about half a teaspoon. In a sauce pan, heat a little ghee, add the powder to it, along with a few fresh leaves of curry patta, a tablespoon of chopped cashews, hing, grated ginger, and stir it together, followed immediately by the cooked oats. Add a pinch of salt, and some water as required, a little at a time, to keep the oats mixture to a runny consistency.
You could also add a tiny pinch of turmeric to the oats, and additional ghee if you like.
I am sending this to WBB #13 : Oats.
