Hannah’s first tooth appeared much later than the average baby. Hence, her meals have been mash this and puree that. At 16 months old, she has only 6 teeth. She only started on semi-solid foods not too long ago. Here’s a recipe for porridge with a coarse texture. It has 3 veggies and 1 meat.
Ingredients
- white rice grains (1.25 chinese soup spoon, rinsed)
- hot water (250 ml)
- broccoli (1 floret, diced into bits)
- corn kernels (removed from 1/2 cob)
- carrot (1 medium stick, peeled and cut into chunks)
- ginger (1 slice, peeled)
- minced pork fillet (1 heaped tbsp, minced finely)
Seasonings for minced pork: 1/2 tsp premium blend Kikkoman soy sauce, 1/2 tsp mirin and a little dash of ground white pepper
Method
1) Place the hot water in the slow cooker’s claypot and bring to a boil over stove fire.
2) Add rice, carrot chunks and ginger to the claypot, cover, and transfer it to the slow cooker to cook for an hour on ‘high’ mode.
3) Steam the broccoli and corn for 15 minutes. And in the meantime, marinate the minced pork with the above stated seasonings.
4) After steaming, mince the corn kernels with a knife to obtain the desired texture (I prefer this to using the blender – less washing to do and easier to control the extent of mincing too).
5) After an hour, remove all the carrot pieces and ginger slice from the slow cooker and mash 3 carrot pieces in the serving bowl. Discard the rest.
6) Add the marinated minced pork into the porridge and stir with deft strokes to break up the meat.
7) Add the steamed broccoli and minced corn to the porridge and give it a few more rounds of stirring to mix all the ingredients well.
8) Switch off the power supply and scoop out the porridge into the serving bowl that contains the mashed carrot. Stir to mix the carrot with the porridge.
9) Feed your little one when the porridge has cooled down to just warm. :D
The sweetness of carrots and corn works well with the savoury flavour of soy sauce. The purpose of using the carrot is to infuse its natural sweetness into the porridge. As I didn’t want Hannah to consume too much beta carotene (she got an orange nose due to eating too much orange veggies and fruits), I only mashed a small portion of the cooked carrot.
Use sweet corn for cooking as starchy ones (those kept in the refrigerator for many days) are not that palatable in porridge.
As for broccoli, try not to keep it in cold storage for too long too. It would lose its natural sweetness over time.
Bon appetit! :)
P.S. I have been amazed at how quick Hannah is learning to understand her environment and people around her. When it is meal time, she would start shifting her high chair and my chair into position. She would remind me to close the make-shift gate at the kitchen doorway even though she would gladly step into the kitchen to play with the drawers and dustbin. She would alert me if my hp receives an sms while I was cooking in the kitchen. She would turn on or off the fan when requested. She understood us even though she couldn’t speak our language just yet. I read that toddlers at this age are developing in this fashion. Wow, the human brain is fascinating.
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