Coconut Farro Porridge with Mango Recipe
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If you’re an oatmeal person when it comes to breakfast, try this farro porridge for a more exotic start to your day. The addition of coconut and mango makes for a flavorful breakfast that’s hearty enough to keep you going all day.
What to buy: Farro is a whole-grain relative of wheat with a nutty flavor. When cooked, each grain retains a firm, chewy texture. You can find it in the bulk section of many well-stocked grocery stores and in most Italian grocery stores. If you can’t find it, spelt makes a decent substitute.
Game plan: We made this recipe with both pearled and unpearled farro, and each works well. The pearled farro takes less time and is creamier but lacks that distinctive chewiness that is characteristic of unpearled farro.
This recipe was featured as part of our Whole Grain Recipes and Cooking with Winter Ingredients recipe slideshows.
- 2 (13.5-ounce) cans regular or light coconut milk
- 1 1/2 cups farro
- 1 cup water
- 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon fine salt
- 1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
- 2 medium mangoes, small dice
- Combine the coconut milk, farro, water, brown sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat and stir occasionally until simmering, about 10 minutes.
- Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, until the farro is cooked through and creamy and most of the coconut milk has been absorbed, about 1 hour. Stir in the coconut extract and mango and serve.
Tried this last night with spelt--just could not find farro locally. Unforunatedly I started around 10 PM and found myself still stirring till 3 AM. I must have simmered that unsoaked spelt for upwards of four hours before it absorbed most of the liquid and could be chewed by anything less than a horse! BUT...it was worth the wait, and around 3:30 AM I had a nice bowl of it with a fresh, ripe delicious Ataulfo mango. Wonderful, blend of flavors, toothy and filling.
Next time (and I guarantee there will be many next times!) I might try pre-soaking the spelt overnight, using farro if I can find or order some, or trying this recipe using a high quality organic brown rice, which would likely work out just as well. I might even adjust the salt down by a teaspoon to start and add a bit more to taste as the grain softens and absorbs the liquid. One other suggestion is to set aside a bit of cooking liquid toward the end to pour over the mango as a sauce a la mangoes & sweet rice. Thanks for sharing this with us!
I like the concept of the recipe, but over an hour prep time for breakfast? Are there any modifications or "night before" steps that could bring the prep time down to something more realistic?
I tried this with spelt since the only farro I could find was more expensive than the lobster per pound. It turned out great. Nice sweetness and great texture. It should do well keeping me full for a few hours.
@s_rk: pre-soaking the farro isn't necessary. Even though lots of recipes suggest pre-soaking overnight, I've cooked farro without a soak and it still only takes 30 mins.
Do you need to presoak the farro before starting the recipe?
boisenewbie: you should be able to make it in the slow cooker so long as you put it on the warm function or turn it off once it's done. we have not tried it ourselves though so try it out and let us know how it turns out!
Is this something you can do in the slow cooker (like steel cut oats)?
bluebirdtwo, you are absolutely correct about pearled vs unpearled farro! We had it backwards and have corrected the information above. Thanks for the heads up.
Loved the receipe. Works even better with our cracked emmer farro. A couple of clarifications: Spelt genreally is not a good substitute for emmer-farro. Also, "pearled" grains, as in pearled farro, means that the endosperm (along with it's integrity) has been removed from the naked grain itself. This actually SPEEDS UP cooking time, but you lose a lot of the flavour and most of the nutriton. Unpearled is the opposite - naked grain fully entact but takes longer to cook. So far as we know, we're the only farm that grows,processes and direct sells 100% organic emmer-farro in the country. We run the harvest ed emmer-farro through a line of machines that remove the husk, but not the endosperm itself, and then we sperate (grade) these by weight. Learn more at bluebirdgrainfarms.com. Thanks for using and promoting this wonderful heirloom grain!