Millet flour
Although millet is widely grown around the world as a cereal crop, it’s relatively unknown in Australia. With a beautiful ‘toasty’ aroma when milled, it produces a fine, easy to use flour which is particularly good in breads. Naturally gluten-free, millet grain makes a lovely porridge and can be used in both risottos and salads. To improve its nutrient value and make it easier to digest, it’s worth soaking the grains overnight before cooking them. Millet flour makes lovely sourdough bread, or if you’re making yeast bread, the flour can be mixed with the water and rested overnight before adding the yeast when you’re ready to cook the loaf the following day. The flour can even be toasted in the oven before baking – just keep a close eye to ensure it doesn’t burn.
Millet was a very early domesticated crop, believed to have been consumed by humans for about 7,000 years. Millet was an important food source in prehistoric diets, particularly in China, India and Korea. Different varieties of millet are indigenous to various parts of the world, including East Asia, South Asia, West Africa, and East Africa. With evocative names like pearl millet, proso millet, foxtail millet and Japanese barnyard millet, there’s a whole range of millet to explore.
Here in Australia, indigenous millet (Panicum decompositum) was an important crop for millennia and Australian Aborigines may well have been the world’s first bakers!