Dipping into Some New Grains

Mediterranean Millet Dip

Grains are great — you can grind them into flour and bake with them, you can toss them into stir-frys and use them as the basis for pilafs and salads, and you can thicken just about anything with them.  (There are tons of other ways to use grains, but as one of my favorite childhood authors was prone to saying, “That’s another story, to be told another time.”  Too bad Michael Ende never wrote a sequel to The Neverending Story!)

As long as your grain is well-cooked, you can purée it.  This holds true for rice, millet, quinoa, teff, oats, wheatberries, etc.  Some grains have a higher smush-ability index than others, though: the bigger the grain, the more smoothly it mashes.  For this recipe, I used leftover cooked millet because I wanted a fairly lump-free texture.  You could use leftover chunks of bread, too, but if you do that, make sure you’re using a whole-grain, neutral-flavor bread and not a loaf full of refined sugar and/or something strong like caraway seeds — there’s plenty of flavor in this Greek-inspired recipe!

Mediterranean Millet Dip (which happens to be gluten-free, although you can use any grain/bread of your choice)

Blend together in food processor until smooth:

1 cup cooked millet
1/2 cup Feta, preferably made of sheep’s milk and in brine
1 T. apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 tsp. honey
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. coriander
1 tsp. dried mint
3-4 cloves garlic that have been slivered and sautéed in extra-virgin olive oil for 2-3 minutes over low heat

Serve at room temperature with a plate of bite-sized raw veggies (carrots, celery, zucchini), crusty bread, and/or good-quality tortilla chips. You could also garnish the dip with a few Greek olives.

Note: you can use this trick of grain-thickening with any dish that calls for thickening with bread.  The classic chilled Spanish gazpacho soup, for example, can easily be made with a cooked grain instead of bread.

Enjoy!

Tags: appetizer, dip, Feta cheese, gluten-free, greek, millet