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Cereals and bread from North-western India

Rabadi / raabadi (millet and buttermilk ferment)राबड़ी

Rabadi is a sour drink-porridge of north-western India made by fermenting pearl millet (or barley) flour in buttermilk for a few hours and then cooking it. The buttermilk brings the lactic acid bacteria, and a short warm fermentation lowers the pH, raises the acidity and cuts the grain's phytic acid. It is a summer food.

Fully documentedCereals and bread19 h – 25 h

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe formulation that gave the most antioxidants and phenols and the least tannin in a 2024 optimisation of traditional rabadi (Neeru et al.), for about 100 mL. The sources give no household amounts.
Pearl millet flour6.83 g[neeru2024]
Buttermilk42.44 mL[neeru2024]
Water50.72 mL[neeru2024]
Starterother: buttermilk, which carries the lactic acid bacteria; the 2024 formulation mixes only millet flour, buttermilk and water

Total time across the recorded steps: 19 h – 25 h

Start
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What changes: Pearl millet flour is stirred into buttermilk and water

Step 1 of 4
Mix pearl millet flour with buttermilk and water
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
L. plantarum

Output: slurry.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Rabadi is a sour drink-porridge of north-western India made by fermenting pearl millet (or barley) flour in buttermilk for a few hours and then cooking it. The buttermilk brings the lactic acid bacteria, and a short warm fermentation lowers the pH, raises the acidity and cuts the grain's phytic acid. It is a summer food. Made in 4 steps over 19 h – 25 h. The longest step, ferment again (optional), takes 16 h (Gupta V 2010). Lactiplantibacillus plantarum does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step16 hReported[gupta2010]Ferment again (optional)
Temperature35–50 °CReported[neeru2024][dhankher1987]Ferment in a warm place

What makes this one different

Rabadi ferments cereal flour in buttermilk, so its lactic bacteria come from the buttermilk (Neeru et al. 2024), not from the grain. It is usually cooked after fermenting.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Fermented-cooked-fermented rabadiFermented, cooked and fermented again; highest protein in a steel pot and highest quercetin in an earthen pot.
  • Barley rabadiBarley flour in buttermilk, fermented at 30–40 °C for 6–48 h; 48 h at 40 °C made it less pleasant to taste.
  • Rabadi-like milk drinkSkim milk curd with 5.3 % flour of pearl millet germinated for 24 h, 72 % water and 0.6 % pectin; kept 7 days at 5–7 °C.

Safety

The slurry is cooked after the short fermentation: 7–8 minutes over a high flame, then boiled (Neeru et al. 2024). The fermented-cooked-fermented method ferments the rabadi again for 16 hours after cooking; the study's abstract gives no temperature and no safety test. No source we read tests rabadi for Bacillus cereus, but the US FDA says in general that it grows between 4 and 48 °C, and that its vomiting-type toxin most often affects rice and other starchy foods and may not be disabled by cooking. The FDA advises keeping food refrigerated at 40 °F (4 °C) or lower, which a second ferment left out of the fridge does not do.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

History
The sources we found do not record its history.
  1. [dhankher1987] Dhankher N., Chauhan B.M. 1987, Effect of temperature and fermentation time on phytic acid and polyphenol content of rabadi, a fermented pearl millet food, Journal of Food Science 52(3):828–829 (abstract)paper
  2. [gupta1992] Gupta M., Khetarpaul N., Chauhan B.M. 1992, Preparation, nutritional value and acceptability of barley rabadi, an indigenous fermented food of India, Plant Foods for Human Nutrition 42(4):351–358 (abstract)paper
  3. [gupta2010] Gupta V., Nagar R. 2010, Effect of cooking, fermentation, dehulling and utensils on antioxidants present in pearl millet rabadi, a traditional fermented food, Journal of Food Science and Technology 47(1):73–76 (abstract)paper
  4. [neeru2024] Neeru, Choudhary P., Dhewa T., Kumar A. 2024, Process optimization of pearl millet-based fermented beverage components using response surface methodology and evaluation of its physicochemical parameters, Journal of Food Science and Technology 61(8):1557–1568 (abstract)paper
  5. [yadav2016] Yadav R., Puniya A.K., Shukla P. 2016, Probiotic properties of Lactobacillus plantarum RYPR1 from an indigenous fermented beverage raabadi, Frontiers in Microbiology 7:1683 (abstract)paper
  6. [modha2011] Modha H., Pal D. 2011, Optimization of rabadi-like fermented milk beverage using pearl millet, Journal of Food Science and Technology 48(2):190–196 (abstract)paper
  7. [fda-bbb] US FDA 2012, Bad Bug Book, Foodborne Pathogenic Microorganisms and Natural Toxins, 2nd ed., Bacillus cereus and other Bacillus speciesgov