Vendhaya Congee/Fenugreek Porridge

Vendhaya Congee/Fenugreek Porridge

Fenugreek seeds are very nutritious and are widely used to treat diabetes, control cholesterol level, and for digestion related problems. From Ayurveda we come to know that it’s better to take all the six tastes in our meal.  Among six, salt, sweet, sour, pungent, astringent, and bitter, we often tend to neglect astringent and bitter. At least, we don’t consume these two, as much as the other four.  Fenugreek which is bitter comes in handy. It can be easily added in our meals as ‘Tempering’ in most of our Curries.  I’ll try to suggest more ways of consuming fenugreek and fenugreek leaves in my future posts. But here, I’m giving a nutritious yet very delicious way of consuming Fenugreek seeds.

In our tradition, we use to take Vendhaya Cogee/Fenugreek Porridge, when we have gastric related stomach ache, digestion related stomach ache and to get rid of excess heat from our body. This is typically consumed early in the morning, instead of coffee/tea.

Cooked Rice (parboiled) – ½ Cup

Fenugreek seeds – 1 to 2 tsp.

Salt – to taste

Water – ½ cup

Curd/Natural Yoghurt – 2 tbsp.

Small Onions/Shallots (sliced) – 3 to 4

Spring Onion/Fresh Coriander leaves (Chopped) – to garnish

Salted Lemon Pickle/Narthangai/Elumichai Urukai – little

Fermented Vendhaya Congee

Sliced Onions and spring Onion

Method:

In a bowl, mix rice with water, toss in the fenugreek seeds. Cover and keep overnight.  Early in the morning, the rice would have fermented and the seeds would have become very soft. You can feel a wonderful flavour emanating from the congee. Combine the onions, spring onion/fresh coriander leave, yoghurt/curd and salted lime pickle.  Add little or no salt, since lime pickle would have enough salt.  Relish the congee, trust me it will be delicious.

Salted Lemon Pickle:

Salted Lemon pickle

This is my all-time favourite, which I always make sure to bring from India. In our homes it’s a compelling condiment, which we use to add in Curd/yoghurt rice. Esp. when we have fever or bitterness in our mouth due to some sickness, curd rice with salted lemon will be much more palatable.