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The ragi gets an image makeover

The humble ragi is often touted as a health food, rich in iron and other nutrients. But with a little imagination and expert help, it can yield a wide variety of delicious dishes too.

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Whenever a relative would come visiting from Bangalore, my mum would call for a kilo or two of ragi aralhittu (ragi grains roasted until they pop, and then ground to flour). She would take a portion of the flour in a bowl, add jaggery and milk, and relish every spoon of it. It was a preparation my mum had since her childhood, and she tried instilling the same love in our hearts. However, I turned up my nose. Used to maida and atta, the flour felt coarse on my tongue, and is there anything better than Maggi for a 10-year-old?

As the years went by, I started reading about ragi as a healthy super food that had a low glycaemic index. This didn’t improve the image I had about ragi — a grain you are to have for some abstract health benefit.

That’s why I was sceptical when the editor handed me a book titled Ragi-Ragini. The only reason I decided to give it a read was because the book was slim. But, as I flipped through the pages, I came across preparations that I’d never associate with ragi — custard, sweet pancakes with a variety of fillings, cookies and chocolate cake.

I decided to have a go at a couple of dishes. I chose ragi cookies and sweet pancakes with dates, walnut and raisins filling. I started with the cookies.

I took two cups of ragi flour, available in the market, in a mixing bowl. To this I added one cup of powdered sugar. The book suggests that you sieve the sugar to remove lumps, but I skipped this step. Next, I had to add ghee, one spoon at a time, till the dough is formed. That’s one thing I found different about the book. The instructions are sparse, and some things are left to your estimation. Anyway, I did as instructed (I lost count of the ghee after the seventh spoon) and slowly the dough came together. It’s consistency was similar to that of chapatti dough.

I pre-heated the oven to 150 degrees Celsius. Next, I greased the baking tray with some ghee. I took portions of the dough, and rolled them into balls and flattened them before setting them on the baking tray. I put the tray in, and set the timer to 45min.

As the cookies baked, I turned my attention to the pancakes. This involved taking one cup of ragi flour, half a cup of sugar (castor sugar is preferable), and adding milk till it reached “dropping consistency”. I also added a spoon of cocoa just for fun, and mixed all the ingredients thoroughly. I put a non-stick tava on the stove, and added ghee. Next I took a ladle of the batter and poured it on the tava. I turned the heat down to low and after a couple of minutes, flipped the pancake — you will know this when the pancake turns rich brown in colour.

Side by side, I prepared the filling. I chopped walnuts and roasted them on low flame. With one eye on the walnuts, I chopped the dates, and kneaded it with raisins and a spoon of castor sugar. I added the walnut to it. I spread the filling on the pancakes.
The oven’s timer went off just as I was done with the pancakes.

Two dishes in just 90 minutes. Now it was time to eat.
The pancake had smelled of chocolate, and was soft, though a tad chewy compared to regular pancakes which is made using maida. The cookies had a lovely aroma too. They broke easily, and though they were coarse in texture compared to regular cookies, I didn’t mind them. I was especially convinced that the cookies worked well when a few colleagues who don’t like experimenting with food gave the cookies a thumbs up.

But that’s not all that I took away from the book. Unlike most cookbooks, Ragi-Ragini is a fictional story of about a girl — Ragini, the narrator — who has been brought up in Parvi, a village in Konkan, Maharashtra. Here she experiences village life first-hand — where water is drawn from a well in copper pots, and grains are put into stone grinders to turn them into flour. Along the way she absorbs the poems her grandmother sings while doing hard labour.

So when Ragini tells us about her ragi recipes, she laces it with poems of Marathi poet Bahinabai (which her grandmother sings). It is Bahinabai’s poems that lend poignancy to the narrative. In a poem titled God — The Magical Snake Charmer, Bahinabai writes,In the womb of the earth,

The seeds are asleep
As though covered by a shawl of soil
Warm, comfortable and deep.
The seeds, turgid in the soil,
And the sprouts now push through.
As though, overwhelmed
The earth gets gooseflesh.

There are other poems which are about the stone grinder, the longing of women for their mother’s house, and the loss of loved ones. What do these poems have to do with ragi? At one level, nothing. But they do take you back to the villages where these dishes are commonly prepared, and provide a window to their culture.

That connection, and the dishes I had prepared reset my thinking about ragi — from an exotic health food to an ingredient that comforts and can be part of celebrations.

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