Birds and bees like it. The hard working farmers in rural India like it. I liked it too. I am talking about the grain – millet or korralu as we call it in Telugu. The foxtail millet is often food of people who can’t afford rice in Andhra. And here in America, one more choice the market place provides us to achieve the never attainable mirage of “perfect health”.
I vaguely remember tasting this grain with egg pulusu at my grand parents home when I was an itsy bitsy baby. Today I tried it again.
Wholesome and great, no wonder, intelligent hard working beings on the earth like this grain. For comparison sake, it almost tasted like middle-eastern couscous but nuttier, almost similar to broken rice, you know the kind, we use to prepare ganji or kanji. Do you know the type? Similar to that one. That’s why the millet preparation is called “korra annam” (korra=millet, annam=rice) in Andhra Pradesh.
Yesterday, I was talking to my mother-in-law on phone about this millet preparation. She mentioned that Korra annam is traditionally served with watery pulusu curries (kurmas/stews) like potato or egg pulusu and also with spicy chutneys like gongura chutney etc. I went with her suggestion and prepared potato kurma for millet rice. Good combination. My Mother-in-law is right.
Adding Millet to Boiling Water
Millet Rice (Korra Annam) after 10 minutes of cooking
Recipe:
1 cup millet (korralu, foxtail millet)
2 cups water
¼ teaspoon of salt or to taste
In a saucepan bring the water to a rolling boil on high heat. Continuously stirring, add the millet along with salt, to the water. Reduce the heat to medium. Cover the pot with a lid and cook for about 15 to 20 minutes, stirring in between. The hard grain will loose its punch and get softened within 15 minutes. If this is your first time, taste the grain to test the doneness for every 5 minutes. When it loses its biting resistance and become soft supple like cooked rice, turn off the heat. Cover and let it sit for another 5 to 10 minutes.
Serve hot with a kurma curry like potato/brinjal/drumstick/egg and little bit of ghee.
Korra Annam with Potato Kurma ~ Our Afternoon Meal Today
Kitchen notes:
Recipe source: My Mother-in-law (Attamma)
Korralu (millet) is purchased from US grocery shop called ‘Whole Foods’ – bulk bins (labelled ‘Millet’).
More about foxtail millet and nutritional profile – Organic Uttaranchal, from Gramene Project, here.
About Millet and farming in Andhra Pradesh – diaries from hard working farmers.
How to prepare different types of millets – photo demonstrations (good info)
Indira,
Lovely post as usual.
In Sri Lanka, Foxtail Millet is called ‘Thinai’ in Tamil. It is one of the innumerable alternate grains the ancestors used as part of their daily diet. And which we seem to have lost touch with in our race to confirm to the mainstream norms and to appear sophisticated. I have to confess that even though, I’ve tasted some different grains, i’ve stayed with rice most of my life.
Getting back to Foxtail Millet, I remember my grandmom mixing roasted Millet flour with some honey, scraped coconut and warm water to make handsized balls. She gave it us on a day when we lost electric power (it stayed that way for more than a week, the war was not at it’s peak in Northern Sri Lanka, then). We were not very enthusiastic. But the glamour of sitting together in a circle around our grandmother enticed us. 🙂 I vaguely remember the nutty taste.
As usual, there is a story behind the then (honey) & thinai Maavu (Millet Flour). Quite a famous and ancient one at that.
Lord Murukan has two wives, one of them is Valli a tribal girl from Kathirkamam in Southern Sri Lanka.
It’s an interesting love story. Long story short, Murugan tries to woo Valli, who was guarding the family’s Millet (from birds and such). He takes different forms. One of them is as an old man. The old man claims to be hungry and Valli feeds him Millet flour mixed with honey. The old man, after eating this claims to be thirsty. And, Valli takes him to a stream. After that, without changing forms, the old man propositions Valli without any success. On the verge of defeat, Murugan requests the help of his older brother Vinayakar or Pillaiyar, who appears as a wild elephant. Thus driving Valli into the arms of the waiting Murugan. You can read about it here – http://kataragama.org/valli.htm.
It is customary to be given Millet flour mixed with honey in Kathirkamam, Sri Lanka as Prasatham.
I am going to look for Foxtail Millet in the health food stores here Indira. That last photo is quite tempting.
Happy New Year Indira.
-Mathy
Thanks for the wishes and Happy New Year Mathy! Hope you had a wonderful holiday season with family and friends in that beautiful city of yours. I heard Montreal glows during holiday season with festive cheer.
What a wonderful story, never knew that humble millet was the food of Gods and also offered as prasatham. I’ve to try your grandmama’s sweet version.
One more recipe I remember is millet upma – with onions, green chillies, curry leaves etc, usually served with peanut chutney. It tastes awesome.
About comments – Actually I was displaying comments on the front page until spring of last year. Then the spammers found Mahanandi. It’s continuously under attack and even the spam karma-2 couldn’t stop them from leaking on to main page. Because of that I had to remove display feature from my template. Spam is brutal to deal with these days. It’s a major headache.
I also have a request Mathy. I’ve added Blog Desam along with Technorati etc at Mahanandi’s Food Blog List. Could you please add a category for us food bloggers in Blog Desam. It’d be nice to have a “Food” or “Recipes” category for food bloggers. It’d also make easy to check the updates in food blogs. What do you think? Thanks Mathy!
—-Indira
Comment by Mathy Kandasamy — January 8, 2007 @ 9:08 pm
Wow Mathy took me back to the days I was reading Murugan stories. I have to say I was thinking Millet was “Kambu” – did not know that its thinai. I thought Thinai was extinct. I am going to definitely try this out. If lord muruga loved it, I have to try it out.
Thanks both of you !!!!
Comment by Revathi — January 9, 2007 @ 11:06 am
I liked discovering this post very much, because millet is one of my favourite grains. Its health food qualities make it even more special. I sometimes roast it lightly before boiling to give it extra flavour.
Of course, there is a personal story connected with my affection for millet. My grandmother was a young woman with 3 children when the WWII began, and they had to live in the caves in the forest when their village was being raided (it happened often in Russia, where she lived before the war; they moved to Ukraine later.) She had almost nothing but millet, and she could not light the fire for long for the fear of being discovered by the SS troops. So, she would boil water, add millet and then put out the fire and let the grain cook in the residual heat. She said that millet saved their lives. When I was a child, I still remember her cooking millet like this. She would boil the water, add millet and salt and then turn the heat off. She wrapped the heavy cast-iron pot under layers and layers of towels and there it sat for almost an entire day. The result, however, was always delicious–rich, soft, yet with each grain separate and fluffy.
Sorry for a long comment, but I got carried away with these memories. 🙂
Comment by Victoria — January 12, 2007 @ 2:08 pm
Hi Indira,
Thanks for posting this blog. I am a first generation Indian-American. My parents are from Hyderabad. I love surprising them with recipes that they haven’t had since they were young or that only my ammammas make. I was wondering if you have a recipe for chinthakaya pachadi. My mom gave me some that she got from India but I ran out.
Thanks,
Lavanya
Comment by Lavanya — January 13, 2007 @ 10:15 pm
Indira,
Thanks for sharing all these recipes with us. I prepared some of the recipes given by you and our family liked them.
I want to know in which section I should look for Millet Rice (Please tell the brand name also) in Whole Foods Market. I also couldn’t find Wild Rice in the regular Grocery. Please let me know where I can look for Wild rice. (Please suggest brand name also)
Thaking you
Sarada
Comment by Sarada — January 17, 2007 @ 6:46 am
//I also have a request Mathy. I’ve added Blog Desam along with Technorati etc at Mahanandi’s Food Blog List. Could you please add a category for us food bloggers in Blog Desam. It’d be nice to have a “Food†or “Recipes†category for food bloggers. It’d also make easy to check the updates in food blogs. What do you think? Thanks Mathy!
â€â€Â-Indira //
Indira,
Thanks for letting us know. There’s more to be done in http://blogdesam.com Will update you as soon as it’s done. Thanks for the feedback Indira.
-Mathy
Indira replies:
Thanks very much Mathy. It would be a great service to the food bloggers community and checking the updates become easy. If you do this for us, I will send you a box of sweets (from Mahanandi recipes) of your choice. :). Small sweet bribe to motivate you. 🙂
Comment by Mathy Kandasamy — January 18, 2007 @ 3:00 pm
hi indiragaru, many of my friends are asking for korra annam recipe with pic.i had given the paayasam with korralu. but i couldnt get the clear pic of korralu. and i am not so perfect photographer like u ..i request u can i take the pic of korralu and cooked korra annam for my blog. i ll take only if u agree. pls chek my blog and give ur valuable comments too. thnku
Comment by jyothi — January 24, 2007 @ 5:01 am
[…] Look what Indira writes about Foxtail Millet. […]
Pingback by Vindu » Boiled Foxtail Millet : Korrannam — April 24, 2007 @ 10:12 am
I am growing foxtail millet in my yard here in Georgia. I had no idea of its importance in Tamil Nadu! What interesting lore I’ve been reading here! I wonder if anyone out there has practical advice on harvesting/threshing on the domestic scale? How do they do it in India?
Comment by Montana — August 2, 2008 @ 9:44 am
Hi,
You have a wonderful blog.Thanks for all the authentic recipes.I have a doubt though. Foxtail Millet is called Navane, Thinai etc. in the South and Varagu is supposed to be Kodo Millet. I also read that it can be poisonous and even fatal sometimes. Is this true?
Comment by Devi — January 5, 2010 @ 11:04 pm
Korra Annam, We tried last sunday. It’s taste different from other grains. We liked it. We also prepared potato,tomato,onion,chillies with little curry leaves. It’s really tastes good.
Comment by Raghuram Boddeda — June 9, 2012 @ 9:54 pm
Last sunday, we tried korra biyyam and pesalu for Pesarattu. I bet no one idetify the difference between this and pesalu+ biyyam pesarattu. We ate just like the “pesarattu”.
Comment by Raghuram Boddeda — June 9, 2012 @ 10:03 pm
Its good food. I understand from one of the cooking programme in TV that it cures mouth ulcer (Boiles in the mouth) for any reason.
One more tip is avoid coffee totally not even a drop to be taken then also you can eliminate mouth ulcer totally.
For immidiate pain relief use locadine gel a local anaesthesea which is harmless eliminatespain immidiately
Comment by Nalini Jayanthi — August 9, 2012 @ 12:33 am
Korra Annam is very good food for diebatic people It is mainly poor peoples food in Rayala seema area. We are interested to produce and popularize in cities
Comment by sakaleswara Reddy — September 21, 2014 @ 4:37 am
Would like to know whether it is really good for diabetic people to avoid completely eating fine rice.
Comment by PS Rao — December 3, 2015 @ 9:26 am
We have lot of stock of korralu to sell at Anantapur. Please let us know where to sell them.
Comment by Raju — April 27, 2016 @ 1:01 am
Hi Raju mail me your contact number to my id mplvinodh@gmail.com
I need korralu so that I can call you
Comment by Vinodh — August 24, 2016 @ 7:38 am
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Comment by venkateshwarlu deverashetty — November 3, 2018 @ 10:20 pm
please send me the wholesale rates for below items FOXTAIL MILLET (కొరà±à°°à°²à±)
JOWAR MILLET (జొనà±à°¨à°²à±)
FINGER MILLET (రాగà±à°²à±)
PEARL MILLET (సజà±à°œà°²à±)
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Comment by venkateshwarlu deverashetty — November 3, 2018 @ 10:21 pm
Foxtail millet is fibre rich food, so 7-8 hours pre soaking is required and to make it you need to add water in 1 to 7 ratio. All the best for your good health
Comment by Srinivas — December 26, 2018 @ 12:59 am