Varagu Adai, a healthy breakfast / dinner recipe made from kodo millet, lentils and Indian spices. In recent times, cooking with millet is famous everywhere like tv shows, cook books and in the blog world too.

In general, I'm not too comfortable in including any new millet in my diet as soon as I hear about it or just because it went viral in the online world. Hence I'm a little late for the millet party.

For a while now, I have been including all kinds of millet in our diet little by little. Instead of replacing rice with millet for our lunch, I like to add them in dosa batter or adai. And this varagu adai is my recent favorite.

Millet Vs Rice

Compared to rice, millets have a good amount of fibre, protein and amino acid. Therefore including millets in your diet adds more benefit to your overall health.

Other millets

Millets like samai(little millet) and kuthiraivali(barnyard) can also be used in this recipe in the place of kodo millet. I have tried with all these three millet and it tastes good without much difference in taste.

Related : How to make Adai Dosai

Drumstick leaves

I have tried this adai with and without drumstick leaves. Adding drumstick leaves definitely gives nice flavor to the adai. But it's totally optional. In recent times, I have made them mostly without drumstick leaves because it's really hard to source here.

Ok, now let's check out on how to make these delicious

Disclaimer: I'm not a nutritionist or dietician, all my knowledge about the food/grains are acquired through reading or watching videos from the experts in the field.

Related : Millet Recipe Collections

Millet Adai/Varagu Adai

Preparation Time : 2 hrs | Cooking Time : 20 mins | Serves : 4
Recipe Category: Adai | Recipe Cuisine: Indian

Ingredients

Varagu/Kodo Millet Rice - 1/2 cup

Toor Dal - 1/2 cup.

Channa Dal - 1/2 cup.

Urad Dal - 1/2 cup.

Red chili - 5 no

Cumin seed - 1 tsp

Fennel seed - 1/2 tsp

Ginger - 1/2 inch pieces

Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Asafoetida - 1/8 tsp

Drumstick leaves - 1/2 cup loosely packed

Salt - to taste

Mustard & split urad dal - 1/2 tsp

Onion -1(finely chopped)

Curry leaves - few

Procedure

First put all the dal and varagu rice in a bowl and wash it well. Then soak it in water along with chili,cumin and fennel for 1 1/2 - 2 hrs.

Once it's soaked well.Grind it in the wet grinder/mixie along with ginger into fine paste and remove it in a bowl and keep aside.

Heat the pan with 1 tbsp of oil and add mustard ,split urad dal,curry leaves & onions,saute it with pinch of salt until onions becomes translucent.

Add this onion into batter along with turmeric,salt & asafoetida and mix well.Finally wash the drumstick leaves and add it into the batter. Add water and adjust the consistency of the batter.

Heat the tava ,grease the tava and pour the ladle full of batter and spread like dosa(keep it in low flame,so that you can able to spread,after spreading the batter increase the flame)and cook it for 2-3 mins,then flip it and cook on other sides.Once it becomes golden brown on both sides,remove it.