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Breaking fast
Breakfast is actually breaking fast. You had not eaten for the past 10 to 14 hours. So the way to go about it is gently!
The common advice to eat a heavy, hearty breakfast "like a king" is actually not a very good idea. It might have been appropriate in the past, where the men would eat a heavy breakfast and then go out for a full day of heavy, physical work. Few of us do this nowadays.
What some people do nowadays, however, is eat only fruits for breakfast. This is going the other extreme. It may be light and refreshing. It may give a good feeling if you had eaten a heavy dinner with lots of meat. But it does not leave a nice, warm feeling in the tummy. In the long term, eating too much fruits will make you weak and cold.
The moderate way is to eat what people have traditionally eaten for breakfast - porridge.
To Asians, porridge means rice porridge. To Europeans and Americans, it means oat porridge. Actually, porridge is any grain that is cooked in a soft way.
It can be rice, oats, millet, barley or more exotic grains like quinoa or amaranth - or a mixture of two or more grains. It can be made from whole grains or broken grains like rolled oats, rolled barley, or poltenta (corn grits). It can also be made from grains that have been leftover from dinner.
Of course, fresh whole grains are the healthiest. The grains are complete, intact and still alive. Once grains are broken, oxidation takes place (like how the flesh of an apple turns brown when it is cut) and they are not as fresh. But for convenience, broken grains or leftover cooked grains are acceptable.
Basic Porridge
1 cup grains
5 cups water
pinch of sea salt
Bring grains to the boil. Add sea salt. Cover, reduce fire and cook until grains are soft and they open up.
Broken grains like rolled oats usually take about 10 minutes. Millet, quinoa and amaranth takes about 20 minutes. Rice, barley and other hard grains take about 45 minutes or longer.
Variations
- Cook grains with vegetables, fruits and dried fruits: rice with sweet potato, millet with pumpkin, rolled oats with banana or raisins... Try also grated carrot, green peas, lotus root sliced thinly, yam, dried apricot, etc
- Serve sprinkled with lightly toasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds.
- For a richer, creamier porridge, cook with a mixture of water with soy milk, grain milk (rice milk. oat milk) or nut milk (almond milk).
The following recipe shows how interesting a simple breakfast porridge can be:
Polenta with ginko and lotus seeds
24 ginko nuts (for convenience, buy them ready shelled)
24 dried lotus seeds
8 pieces dried melon strips
8 cups water
pinch of sea salt
2 cups polenta (corn grits)
Boil ginko, lotus seeds, melon strips with sea salt for 20 minutes.
Add polenta, stirring continuously to prevent clumping. Cook another 5 minutes. Enjoy!