One Millet Porridge for the ORF Coming Up!

The other day, the ORF (Austrian TV and Radio) came over for a visit to look over my shoulder while I cooked, styled and photographed food. It was all pretty exciting. Kerstin Polzer (lovely wife of Oliver Polzer) and the camera guy arrived a little early and since I've been wanting to share my millet porridge with you for ages, this seemed like the ideal opportunity.

If I'm in a rush in the morning, I usually make Morgenstund's millet-buckwheat porridge, which is quick and really delicious.
For Sunday brunch or when I have guests, I can take a bit more time to prepare breakfast and will make my creamy millet porridge with caramelised pears (or apples). Porridge is the ideal start to the day during the cold season because it warms you up from the inside and wintry spices like cinnamon and cloves give it a Christmassy aroma.

Always be careful with cloves - they have an intense flavour and should only be used sparingly. Remove them from the dish before serving as they have a bitter taste, should you inadvertently chew them. However, they perfectly complement many (wintry and Christmassy) dishes like red cabbage, game or Lebkuchen biscuits as well as drinks like mulled wine and tea.

Cinnamon is another spice on heavy rotation during cold winter days, particularly for sweet dishes. Maybe the fact that it's a warming type of spice makes it so ideal for the season. I particularly love cinnamon in apple strudel and mulled wine.

And millet! It isn't just a veritable beauty elixir, it's also very good for your health. Millet contains high levels of minerals, essential trace elements and silicon, which makes your skin look radiant, hardens your fingernails and gives your hair a health boost. In addition, millet also contains vitamins E, A and several of the B-vitamins.

All of this makes this the ideal dish to start a winter's (and shooting) day. You can see the story hier.

 

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Hirse-Porridge mit karamellisierten Birnen

Ingredients:

For the porridge:

  • 100g organic millet (for example by Alnatura, sold at DM's)
  • 450ml milk or almond milk
  • 1 small cinnamon stick
  • 1 clove
  • 1 lemon
  • 3 TBSP honey
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 2 TBSP chopped hazelnuts

For the pears:

  • 3 ripe pears
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 2 TBSP sugar
  • 1 pinch vanilla sugar

Preparation:

  1. Rinse the millet in a fine sieve under running water (to get rid of the bitter flavour). Put the milk in a pan, add cinnamon stick and cloves and let simmer over a low heat for about 5 minutes. Wash the lemon with hot water, rub dry and zest the skin. Remove the spices and add a pinch of lemon zest as well as millet, honey and salt. Stir. Cook the millet over a low heat for around 40 minutes until soft. Add water/milk if needed.
  2. Just before the porridge is ready, juice the lemon. Wash, halve and core the pears and cut them into wedges. In a pan, heat up lemon juice, sugar and vanilla sugar and add the pear wedges. Let them caramelise a little.
  3. Chop the hazelnuts. Serve the porridge warm (or cold) alongside the pears and garnish with the chopped nuts.
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