This is my second recipe with ragi as the main ingredient per our theme of ‘Ingredient through mail’ where a pair of bloggers exchanged ingredients and had to cook with it. Padma of Plantain Leaf gave me ragi as the ingredient with which this is my second recipe after the chewy Ragi Bread I posted yesterday.

I found some interesting facts about Ragi from this new book that has me totally fascinated – A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food by K T Acharya.

• Ragi, also called finger millets, derives from Uganda in East Africa.
• Ragi grains have been found in western and southern India since 2000 BC and it is called ‘nrtta-kondaka’ in Sanskrit which means the dancing grain.
• That could also be why it is called ‘nachni’ in Maharashtra, also a reference to dancing.
• In the days gone by, kings used to honour poets with food made with ragi, milk and honey.

Isn’t that interesting?

To make these muffins, I modified the recipe of Banana Honey Muffins which I made in December to include ragi. The results were good enough for the daughter to agree to eat them as a snack.Mission accomplished!

Makes 12 mini muffins

WHAT WE NEED

All purpose flour                        3/4 cup

Ragi flour                                      1/4 cup

Brown sugar                                 1/4 cup

Salt                                                  1/4 tsp

Egg                                                   1

Milk                                                 3/4 cup

Banana, medium overripe        1

Honey                                              3 tbsp

Oil                                                     3 tbsp

WHAT TO DO

• Preheat the oven to 200 C
• Mix the flours, sugar and salt in a bowl
• Mix the egg, milk, honey and oil in another bowl
• Mash the banana well and add to the egg mixture
• Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and combine
• Line a muffin tray with muffin cups or grease the muffin tray well
• Pour the batter in the muffin cups to little over 3/4 full
• Bake for 12-15 minutes or the toothpick comes out clean
• Cool for 5 minutes
• Serve warm
• Enjoy!

Top the muffin with a smear of Nutella or other chocolate spread to tempt your little one to finish it in one go!

This is my post for the Blogging Marathon under the theme – Ingredient by Mail.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for other marathoners doing this BM.