Little millet
Panicum sumatrense · Grain
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Little millet (Panicum sumatrense) is a small-grained annual cereal grass of South Asia, grown for its very tiny, round kernels — among the smallest of the cultivated millets. Known as kutki, samai or saame, it is a minor "small millet" long grown by tribal and hill farmers as a hardy, fast, low-water grain. Mild, faintly sweet and gently nutty and gluten-free, it is cooked much like rice into steamed grain, porridge, upma and dosa, and is a close culinary cousin of proso millet.
Picking a good onedrag
Newly hulled, pale and clean, faintly sweet and nuttyDull and bitter, smells of crayon and old nuts
Sealed and in dateEveryday bestRinse, soak briefly, then cook it like rice — upma, pongal, dosa and idli batter. Coeliacs: buy a pack marked certified gluten-free; mills are shared.
Smell a handfulNeutral and dusty; the nut comes up as you warm a pinch in your palm
Look at the grainEven enough, with a few hull flecks and broken grains through it
Whole grain, rava or flourWhole grain from an opened jar or a busy bin, still smelling clean
Shake the bagA little fine dust, but the grains still run and there are no threads