Sorghum-Millet Fritters and my Aunt is in town.

My aunt is visiting Maine for the first time in almost 15 years. She is a bit of a gourmet and is also used to the bounty of California. I wanted to make sure that her wheat-free, meat-free, dairy-free meal was tasty, hip, and satisfying. She and my mom have been out antiquing all week running themselves ragged. Today was the Burnham auction for which they rose at 5 am and stood out in the blustery cold to hunt for bargains and try their luck bidding against the other dealers. So the meal had to be hearty, but not too rich, spicy or full of strange spices.
Because I don't rock the gluten, I have to keep my grain selection to: rice, quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, sorghum, corn and millet. I recently found some sorghum at the health food store and decided to give it a try although all I'd ever heard about it was that you could pop it like pop corn. I also have millet on hand but have found that by itself it has the effect of drying out the mouth and doesn't have enough of a resistance when chewing. But in combination sorghum and millet compliment each other well. Sorghum stays whole and has a certain crispness to it while the millet can cook up to be quite creamy almost like polenta.
So the first thing I did was add one part sorghum and four parts water to a pot and wait for it to boil. I then cut in half and scooped out the seeds of a lovely butternut squash. I'm pretty happy that both major food store chains in my town carry some local produce. Squash has been wicked expensive this fall, but the local squash that is now available is fresher, tastier, more richly orange and cheaper!! I placed the squash, flesh side down, and two lovely little rutabagas that I bought at Bangor's own European Market in the baking dish. The oven was set at 475 and in went the tasty fall bounty.
Once the Sorghum was at a boil, I reduced heat and let it simmer for about 25 minutes before I added about one cup of millet. I'd had some chick peas soaking and added them (about 1 1/2 cups) with some water and a piece of Kombu to a pot and set it on the stove to get up to a boil. Kombu is a sea vegetable. If you're not a big sushi eater you're probably not used to the idea of eating seaweed. I know that growing up in Maine and taking trips to the coast I never would have thought all that nasty seaweed that I used to poke sticks at would be somehow tasty. But man oh man, I'm a convert. If you don't have sea vegetables in your house, you probably have salt. Sea vegetables offer more than just salt to a dish, but saltiness is certainly one of the tastes that a nice strip of Kombu will provide while cooking beans. So add salt if you don't have some Kombu handy. At this point I could relax and let things cook. All I had to remember was to turn down the beans to a simmer as soon as they reached a boil. I think I danced around the living room to some James Gang and thought of reasons why I don't really have to grade 75 lab reports for tomorrow morning. But after about a half hour the squash came out of the oven nice and brown and bubbly. The rutabagas had to go back in. I added some more water to the millet/sorghum mixture as the sorghum takes quite a while to cook. The beans just kept on cooking.
So for a nice meal I want soup (in this instance squash soup), a grain a bean and some nice two-toned veg. Everything was in order except the veg. Luckily for me at the afore mentioned European market there is a lovely young man with even lovelier and younger vegetables at a nice price who hails from Winterport, Maine. Yesterday I purchased some mild white radishes, crisp and flavorful carrots and some delectable purple kale. I quickly steamed the kale and then plunged it into ice water finally squeezing the excess water from this lovely calcium rich food! Three carrots and five small radishes were cubed into very small pieces. I added all of these items together and dressed the combination with a dressing made from olive oil, rice syrup, sea salt and brown rice vinegar. If I were to do this again, however, I would forgo the oil and the syrup and focus solely on the sour aspect of the vegetable combination. But in general the idea is that a vinaigrette has an oil for "mouth-feel", something sour, something sweet and something salty as the base. I then set aside the veg as this is best served room temperature.
The millet/sorghum combination wound up being rather crunchy in the sorghum category and pretty creamy (ok a little mushy) in the millet category. I turned off the heat of the grain mixture and let it sit. By this time my rutabagas were nicely browned and ready to emerge triumphant from the oven. I hadn't soaked my beans for very long (because sometimes I'm just a bad little hippie chick) so they had to simmer for quite some time.
I chopped up about three onions rather coarsely and a tiny little bit of ginger rather finely and threw them in a big soup pot with some sesame oil to brown and sweat. I probably would have used more ginger but my mom insists on making a terribly horrified face at the mere mention of ginger. Once the onions/ginger looked brown but not crispy I added about four cups of water and brought it to a slow boil. I then lowered the heat, scooped out the insides of the lovely butternut squash and let the onions, ginger and squash get to know each other on low heat.
Once the beans were tender I added two heaping tablespoons of miso to the mixture, stirred and then turned off the heat.
Now was my moment of inspiration. My gooey yet chewy millet and sorghum mixture was about to meet my baked rutabagas in a mixing bowl of fritter love. I mashed up the rutabagas and mixed in the grain mixture. I then shaped small flat fritters and gently pressed them into a bowl of sesame seeds in order to coat the top and bottom with a thin layer of sesame goodness. Now If I were writing a cookbook, or if I were into lying about how totally excellent I am I would say that I busted out my cast iron pan for some hot heat frying. And I want you to know that I tried. But our cast iron pan was put away without being thoroughly dry and so there was a rather large rust spot that dashed my hopes of crispy, not too greasy fritters. I used the stainless steel pan instead to so-so results. In the end I took the non-really-crispy-but-certainly-cooked-in-oil fritters and placed them in the over on high to finish crisping.
I removed half of the chick peas with liquid to a tiny little food processor. I also added a huge handful of mint leaves. Once pureed I returned the minty, pureed, chick peas to the pot and kept the saucy beans on low heat until I was ready to ladle them over the fritters.
The squash soup only needed to be blended before it was ready. The onion/ginger/water/squash mixture was added in batches to the blender for a quick spin and out came a beautiful, creamy soup no dairy required thank you very much!!! (Oh sorry. Sometimes I do get a little high on my horse. I'll try to keep that in check)
We were then ready to eat.
Normally I like to serve squash soup with a few pumpkin seeds as a garnish, but I was all out. Ah well. We were too busy scooping spoonfuls to notice. The fritters were removed from the overn, laid out on the plates and topped with the chick pea concoction. The kale/carrot/radish salad was placed next to the fritters and dinner was served.
It might have been nice to have one more vegetable option like some sweet corn. This dinner might also have been more complete with a dessert like some roasted pears. Ah well, perfection comes later.
RECIPE
Fritters
1 part sorghum
1 part millet
5 parts water
start cooking the sorghum before the millet, add the millet in later.
2 small rutabagas baked at 450 degrees. You could use any winter root vegetable like including parsnips or turnips
Mash everything together in a bowl.
Form small, flat fritters.
Coat with sesame seeds
pan fry on high heat or bake or any combination of the two.
Kale salad
Steam a small bunch of kale
chop into tiny cubes three carrots and five white radishes
plug steamed kale in iced water, remove excess water
add vegetables to bowl
dress with:
vinegar, oil, rice syrup and salt or just vinegar and salt
Minty Chick Pea Sauce
Cook 1-2 cups chick peas with a minced onion and a piece of Kombu
when tender add 2-4 tablespoons miso
stir to dissolve and remove from heat
puree one half of beans with 1/2 to 3/4 cup of mint leaves and return to pot with whole beans
Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
Halve and remove seeds from a butter nut squash
Place face down and roast at 450-475 until bubbly and brown at edges
Chop three medium onions and cook in oil
Mince ginger to taste and add to onions
Cook until a little brown and sweating
Add 4-5 cups of water and bring to a gentle boil
Lower heat
Scoop out cooked squash and add to onions and water
Cook for a little while on low
When ready to serve blend the soup in batches
Add water as needed and heat as needed.
You may want to add salt and pepper to taste.