Marty and I went to an Indian tea house and had a dish that we loved twenty years ago. I couldn’t find a proper recipe for it, so I replicated it before my palate forgot what it tasted like. I call that dish…Jeweled Hot Cereal. Jeweled because the dried fruits look like jewels.
The recipe is very loose, meaning I make it with whatever pantry items I have. Today I used grits, but I’ve used cream of rice and gluten-free oatmeal. For those who don’t have to worry about gluten, I started making this cereal with cream of wheat.
I’ve made my jeweled hot cereal with fresh fruit like diced apples and dried fruits like apricots, figs, dates, raisins, and cranberries. Today, I used raisins and cranberries. I sprinkled a little turbinado sugar on the cereal. I also added additional raisins, cranberries, and slivered almonds. Later, I looked online for a recipe to share with you since mine is free for all, especially before the coffee kicks in.
The Quaker Oats recipe uses ground cardamon as their spice, plus crystallized ginger and vanilla sugar. I used cinnamon, ground ginger, garam masala, and a few cardamom pods this morning. (I forgot to remove the cardamon pods, and Marty got all of them!) 😬
I used maple syrup to sweeten the cereal and a pinch of salt. I finished the dish with a pat of butter and a touch of milk. I plated my cereal very much like the Quaker Oats recipe photo.
If you want to try making this hot cereal, you could follow the recipe link above and adjust it to your taste, adding anything you want or have on hand.
It’s a satisfying dish of goodness on a cold day; that’s not too sweet or savory. It’s in between with some lovely Indian spices.
YUM! I make a version of this too, but I will try the indian spices now.