Homemade Sathumavu – Cerelac for Babies

Sathumavu is a wholesome food which helps your babies to gain weight. It is a iron rich, well-balanced health drink for infants as well as adults. It is good for pregnant and breastfeeding women as well.

Ingredients Needed:

White Rice/ Brown Rice – ½ cup

Black lentils (Urad Dal) – ½ cup

Green Gram – ½ cup

Roasted Gram (Chana) – ½ cup

Green gram (Moong Dal) – ½ cup

Red lentils (Masoor Dal) – ½ cup

Broken Wheat (Dalia)  – ½ cup

Barley – ¼ cup

Finger Millet (Ragi) – ¼ cup

Sago (Saabudana) – ¼ cup

Horse Gram (Kulthi) – ¼ cup

Corn (Makka) – ¼ cup

Almond (Badam) – ¼ cup

Cashew (Kaju) – ¼ cup

Cardamom – 4 no

Elaichi – 2 or 3

Optional: Oats and Sesame seeds – 1/4 cup each.

Procedure:

1. Soak Rice, pulses and nuts separately for about an hour in a steel bowl. Air-dry them for about 30 minutes.
2. Dry roast Urad dal and green gram for 5 minutes until it turns brown. Cool down the roasted ingredients.
3. Dry roast moong dal for 5 mins until it turns golden brown. Cool down the roasted dal.
4. Roast Sago, oats until they pop and turn golden in colour. Let it cool down.
5. Now add rice, barley,and horse gram together and dry roast it until the rice is little puffed. Cool down the roasted ingredients.
6. Roast wheat daliya for 5mins until it turns golden brown. Let it cool down.
7. Then dry roast the almonds and cashews together until cashews turn golden in color and cool it down.
8. Once all the dry roasted ingredients are cooled down properly, take them in a mixer except cardamom.
9. Blend everything together to make a fine powder. Finally add cardamom and dry ginger and blend it for 30 seconds.
10. Blend the mixture once again to ensure that the texture of finely milled. You can filter the mixture to remove any coarse grains and reblend it.
11. Transfer the mixture into a wide plate and let it cool down.
12. Transfer the contents into an airtight container and tightly close the lid.

Preparation of Cerelac:

You can start from 1/2 teaspoon per meal for infants and slowly increase the quantity to 2 teaspoons. You can also mix sathumavu to other foods and serve it to your baby.

1. Take about a teaspoon of mixture (or the amount your baby eats) in a steel bowl.
2. Add 1 cup of water to it.
3. Mix the content well to remove any lumps.
4. You can add vegetable or leafy greens to the mixture if you want to increase the sweetness of the porridge.
5. Keep the bowl on sim and let it cook for about 10 -15 minutes or until the ingredients are well cooked.
6. Cool down the porridge and serve it to the baby.