Why is millet porridge bitter and what can be done to get rid of bitterness?
Millet porridge is an incredibly healthy dish for children and adults. It is rich in B vitamins and many macronutrients. Despite the huge benefits, such porridge appears less and less every year in the diet of a modern person. And there is an explanation for this. The fact is that the finished dish can have bitterness, which spoils its taste. Let's try to figure out why porridge gets bitter, and if there are ways to get rid of it.
Causes of bitterness
To deal with this issue, let's start from the beginning. Millet groats are made from millet seeds. During processing, the husk covering the shell of the cereal is removed from them. After that, millet is packaged and delivered to retail outlets for sale. Most often, porridge is prepared from such a cereal in water or milk.
Many housewives have noticed that, subject to the millet cooking technology, sometimes the dish has perfect taste, and sometimes it is bitter. The reason is simple, millet seeds contain vegetable fats. And over time, when interacting with oxygen, any fat begins to oxidize. The result of such a process is rancid vegetable oils, which spoil the dish, provoking an unpleasant aftertaste.
Let's highlight the main causes of bitterness:
- use of old grain;
- using fresh millet that has been stored under the wrong conditions (for example, not in a dark and cool place, but in direct sunlight).
To reduce the risks of acquiring low-quality millet, you need to familiarize yourself with the rules for choosing it.
How to choose millet?
First of all, when buying millet groats, you should pay attention to its appearance. Good groats have a uniform, bright yellow color without white bloom, spots and other inclusions. The faded color of the grain and the presence of dirt indicate that you have a poor quality product. When choosing a product, be sure to check the expiration date. If everything is in order, you can safely take millet.
When buying millet groats by weight, you should purchase goods from time-tested sellers. There are unscrupulous “traders” who repackage expired grains, stick a label with a new date, and put the products on display again. Even if the above rules are observed, everyone has risks of acquiring rancid millet.
If this happens, you need to know what to do so that the porridge turns out without bitterness.
What to do so that millet does not taste bitter?
If porridge is cooked from rancid seed, it will no longer be possible to get rid of this problem. You can only try to “soften” the dish by adding steamed dried fruits, berries, jam or vanillin to it. If the cereal is just to be cooked, then you can protect yourself in advance. There is only one way to remove bitterness: by washing off the oxidized oils from the millet shell.
To do this, you need to sort out the cereal, rinse it from dust and pour hot water. It is useless to use cold liquid. After 2-3 minutes, the cereal is mixed, and the water is drained. Next, you need to once again pour the millet with hot water and repeat the manipulation. Such actions should be repeated until the liquid becomes completely transparent. Turbidity will indicate incomplete removal of fat.
There is a slightly different way to get rid of bitterness.It will require less effort. To remove an unpleasant aftertaste, millet must be poured with cold water and put on the stove over high heat. At the moment of boiling, you need to drain the liquid with dissolved rancid fats, rinse the grits from oil residues, then pour clean water again and cook until tender.
Is it possible to eat a dish with a rancid taste?
If the cereal has not expired, but the dish prepared from it has a slight taste of bitterness, it is allowed to be eaten. However, if bitterness remains after thoroughly washing the cereal or boiling it, it is better to throw out the finished porridge along with the remaining millet. You should not add jams or marmalade to such a dish to reduce bitterness, you must immediately refuse it. Otherwise, such a product can cause health problems, from diarrhea to nausea and vomiting.
Porridge from rancid cereals is especially dangerous for young children.
To reduce the risks of oxidation of vegetable fats in millet, you do not need to buy it "for future use". Long-term storage of millet reduces not only its taste, but also its beneficial effects on the body. It is also important to take care of the correct safety of the purchased product.
To store millet cereals, it is best to use a refrigerator. It is important that the grain is in a dark and cool place in an airtight container. Storage in torn packaging or plastic bags is undesirable. It is best to pour the cereal into a glass jar and close it with a tight lid. By following the recommendations for choosing and storing millet, as well as its proper preparation, you can cook delicious and healthy porridge for the whole family.
You will learn more about how to get rid of bitterness in millet porridge in the following video.
Thank you for the video ... I especially liked what the man showed.
I have heard more than once that millet porridge can be bitter, but in fact I have never come across this. I always cook millet porridge the same way, as my mother taught me. Perhaps I do everything on the machine, not noticing the nuances. But I know for sure: you need to choose millet carefully - stale cereals are bitter. I choose yellow, fresh, undamaged cereals, without foreign impurities - and this is not always the most expensive millet, because. an expensive one is poorly bought up, and it can be stored in a store for a long time. I always buy millet in a store where there is a good turnover and nothing is stale. I rinse strictly in hot water until the water becomes clear, because. you need to wash off the "torment", which can give a bitter aftertaste. I also cook with milk, it can be a little diluted, but I don’t regret milk in porridge, because. it absorbs a lot of liquid and swells. I add salt strictly at the end of cooking, when the millet swells and becomes tender. After cooking - butter. As a result, the taste of porridge is "like ice cream," as the children say...) I recommend it to everyone!)
Well done!
Thanks a lot!