Savory Oats

[sudsmaster]

I've hated breakfast oatmeal for most of my life. An insipid concoction, slimy and overly sweet. The addition of raisins only seemed to highlight its overall cloying blandness.

But I do like rice and salty foods.

So I started experimenting tonight, making a litle old fashioned oatmeal but seasoning it with olive oil, salt, soy sauce, sesame seed oil, and hot sauce. Not bad, but I wanted to go further.

So I hit the net and found a lot of recipes for cooking old fashioned oats as a side dish.

I took a few hints from that and devised my own recipe, which I'm enjoying right now:

1) A few tablespoons of pork fat from slow cooked pork broth. A few tablespoons of olive oil.

2) Chop an onion and saute in the fat until transluscent. Add minced garlic clove and chopped hot red pepper like Serrano.

3) Add a chopped red bell pepper (you can use just about any other fresh veggie as well). Stir until pepper is coated and heated through.

4) Add two cups old fashioned oatmeal. Stir until coated. Add more oil or fat as needed.

5) Add 2.5 cups of pork stock (any kind of stock will do, actually).

6) Bring to boil and simmer uncovered for five minutes. Add two tsp salt to taste.

7) Turn off heat and cover and let sit for five minutes.

Not bad! Next time I'll try adding some winter veggies like chard, broccoli.

The leftovers will get reheated in the morning as a base to receive a couple of fried or poached eggs.

 

[retropia]

Grits are flexible that way, in that they are served with either a sweet or savory flavoring. Oatmeal is probably better for you than grits, I suppose. The texture of oatmeal is different from grits and rice, though. That might be a reason why oatmeal isn't traditionally served in a savory style.

It sounds like your experiment is worth pursuing.

 

[NYCWriter]

I've always ...

... loved putting peanut butter in my oatmeal!

 

[whirlcool]

Even though I was born a Yankee, don't take my standard Grits away from me!

When I was growing up we had cinnamon, maple syrup and raisins or currents in our Oatmeal. Whenever we have it (not often enough) that's what we still put in it.

 

[polkanut]

The only way my wife will eat oatmeal is with raisins and brown sugar.  I also add cinnamon to mine.

 

[sudsmaster]

There are a number of recipes out there about serving old fashioned oats as a side dish. Many of them involve lightly toasting the oats first. I didn't try that, but I think I will, as it will probably make them less mushy when cooked.

I'm also probably going to try adding curry powder early on. I had a little curry flavor in the roast pork broth, and that carried through to the oats in a very nice way. It just needed to be stronger.

Also thawing out some more of the roast pork, so will be able to add some diced chunks of that, as well.

Chard is in season in the garden, will probably be the next veggie to mix in with the oats.

 

[nurdlinger]

We were fed oatmeal as kids all the time. But it was the kind that you had to cook for several minutes, not the instant kind you see nowadays. The only oatmeal I can tolerate now is the steel-cut kind that comes in a can. I have a small slow-cooker which will make four servings overnight and that is how I prepare it. As kids, we put brown sugar on it because there was always some around. I have no sugar, so I use some Splenda and maybe raisins if I have any. Maybe a pat of butter too.