Inspired by Sri Lankan Herbal Porridge (Kola Kanda)
This dish is my own creation inspired by very popular herbal porridge in Sri Lanka. My mama would pick few bunches of Moringa leaves, Pennywort greens and Curryleaves and prepare a big pot of herbal porridge breakfast for whole family. Traditionally made with coconuts, mix of greens, and rice with coconut milk and stick of cinnamon for the sweet aroma it is a very nourishing and filling combination.
Key to making good herbal porridge is not overcooking green herbal juice that we extracted. So, it’s important we cook any other ingredient we add is precooked in coconut milk before adding the extracted herbal juice. As for the greens, we use either a one single type of green or mix of edible greens to make this. If not, one could use medicinal herbs and keep it purely herbal drink. But it is important to do your own research to know the dosages, safety and gather ample knowledge of medicinal leaves and plants you are planning on using beforehand. In northern USA where I live, I have found Kale, Collard greens, little bit of parsley yields very good results and very easy to find. If you could find it, fresh curry leaves make a great addition as well. Once everything is prepared to go this dish comes together fast and easily.
Personally, I have hard time drinking juices form greens because I find the taste too bitter. Even though I know how good it is to me I often find myself not liking the green juice or smoothies. Making a bowl of herbal soup that’s sits in my fridge all week makes a perfect solution when I am trying to add more greens to my diet but do not want to juice or make salad out of them.
When it comes to serving the porridge traditional rice and greens porridge is served plain and warm with a piece of jaggery. However, I am not making a traditional green herbal porridge that my mom used to make today. I am changing and spicing it up a little bit. Adding little bit more nutrients, fibers, and proteins to it to make a complete meal. I am adding beans, yogurt and replacing rice with ground steel cut oats. I am going to serve it with little bit of strained yogurt, and red pepper flakes and sprinkle of rice on the side.
Let’s get Juicing cooking
Green and Bean Soup
Cook time: 20 minutes
Ingredients
- Kale and Collard greens 2 bunches of each
- One and half cups of scraped coconut
- One cup of cooked black beans (one can of black beans)
- One cup of ground oats or oatmeal flour
- 4 to 6 cups of water (for extracting the juice)
- One clove of garlic
- One inch piece of ginger
- Tablespoon of black pepper
- 2 teaspoons of salt
- 1 teaspoon of turmeric
- One stick of cinnamon
- Teaspoon of mustard
- 1 green chili pepper (optional)
- Sliced red onion
- Tablespoon of coconut oil
Preparation
Work in batches and blend the greens and coconut in a blender to squeeze the juice out with the help of a cheesecloth. You can reuse the extracted juice from earlier blends in when juicing next batches so it will keep getting concentrated as you progress. Idea is to extract as much juice as possible from the greens. We want to gather up that goodness as much as possible.
Heat a tablespoon of oil in a stock pot and when smoking hot add mustard seeds. When they are cracking add onions, garlic, ginger, and green chili pepper. Sauté for a minute and add black beans and turmeric. Toss to coat the beans.
Add all the green juice and turn the heat to low. Slowly add ground oatmeal whisking rigorously avoid clumping. Add the stick of cinnamon.
Cook on low heat stirring constantly on just below simmering temperature until soup thickens up and greens and oatmeal is cooked cooking time will be about 10 minutes.
Serve warm over hot rice and strained yogurt. You could totally skip the rice and serve this soup plain. It has your all your macro and micronutrients all in one go.
I hope you will take the time to make it and let me know how you like it. to me it is very refreshing wit hits taste of fresh earthy flavor of greens and herbs and satisfying with oats and black beans.
This one is for the health.
