Black Porridge for Breakfast: 7 '16

Bruce had the funniest look on his face when I served him Korean Black Porridge for breakfast this morning. But once he tried it , he really liked this nutritious, nutty flavored  rice and black sesame dish.

Here's the recipe for Vegan Black Porridge:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup short grained rice 
• 1/3 cup roasted black sesame seeds ( you can also use white sesame but they are less nutritious than black seeds)
• 5 to 6 cups of water
• 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp Mirin* or honey ( I used Mirin* a sweeten rice wine vinegar available in the Asian section of many grocery stores)
• 1 tsp salt
• Optional honey or agave

Directions:

• Soak rice in water for 1 hour or more and drain.
• Rinse and drain sesame seeds. 
• When the rice is fully soaked, finely grind the rice with 1 C (out of 5) of water. Depending on the power of your blender, it may not come out fully smooth right away. If you see large rice chunks pulse the rice until it is evenly ground into a corn meal like consistency or finer. Set aside. 
• Finely grind the black sesame seeds in the blender, once ground blend the ground sesame withh 2 C of water.Instead of adding all of the water at once, start blending with less water (more like 1/2 to 1 C) and gradually add more.
• Mix the blended rice and black sesame seeds in a pot. (NOTE: because I blended my rice and sesame mixture really finely, I just cooked everything together directly in the pot. If your blended mixture is coarse, you may want to separate the solid rice and sesame bits and their liquid by straining. Mix and cook the two liquids first (just for 2 min) and then add the solid rice and sesame bits later).
• Turn on the heat to medium high and keep stirring until it starts to boil. Stir in the Mirin , the sesame oil and the remaining 2~3 C of water as it cooks. Cook at low heat for 10-15 min. Make sure you continue to stir (I used a wooden spoon) to prevent any rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Consistency will be similar to a thick pudding. If you like yours to be a little more thin, add more water (up to 1 C - totaling 6 cups) . 
• Season with salt (1 tsp) to cook's taste, or you can just serve the porridge with the salt on the side for each to add to their individual taste.  ( Note Do NOT add salt early on while it’s cooking as salt can solved the rice making it mushy.) 
• Garnish with some toasted sliced almonds or pine nuts and of course, sesame seeds. 
• Optionally, you can add agave or honey or serve it on the side!