DIANA HENRY
Not just for breakfast, Diana Henry showcases the versatility of this humble ingredient in bread and puddings
Sweet recipes using oats
If someone throws the word ‘oats’ at me I’ll immediately think of flapjacks and sigh. It’s not that I’m against healthy eating but I loathe flapjacks. They’re sensible yet oversweet and the oats get stuck in your teeth. Give me an apple any day.
Whisper ‘porridge’ to me, though, and my shoulders relax. My eldest has it every morning so I usually come down the stairs to the smell of porridge filling the kitchen. It’s gently sweet and, of course, milky. Weetabix with cold milk – the preferred option of my other son – seems thin and chilly and inadequate in comparison, and now that I’m writing about porridge and, even though it’s mid-afternoon, I guarantee
I will have a pan of it on the hob once I’ve finished writing this piece. I try to add only a smidgen of sugar and usually have it with stewed apples. It’s pretty much the healthiest ‘almost pudding’ I can think of.
I used to be flummoxed by di erent oat options. Basically, fresh oats have to be dried and lightly toasted. Their outer casing is removed by grinding to leave the ‘groat’ or kernel. Pinhead and steel-cut oats (the same thing) are produced by passing these through cutters which chop them. These make a good, textured porridge. Coarse and medium oatmeal are finer. Quick-cooking rolled oats are whole or split groats that have been steamed and flattened (whole flattened oats are called ‘jumbo’ oats and are popular in the US). Real porridge a cionados have a poor view of the pappy – as they see it porridge they produce. For me, it’s steel-cut for porridge, jumbo or rolled oats for muesli.
The bread on page 78 is as dependable as a bowl of porridge and I love having an ingredient in the kitchen that seems solid, inexpensive and good for you. It’s also easy to see it as dull, though. There’ve been various attempts to sell us savoury porridge – Nordic chefs have topped it with wild mushrooms (a good option), and I’ve had it in northern Norway with grated dried reindeer. Still, I can’t get my head around the concept, though there’s no reason for that except conditioning.
I do use oats in stu ngs, to coat fish and in the Scottish dish, skirlie. Skirlie is always savoury and, at its most basic, is oats fried in fat with onions and seasoning. But, look at it sideways, trying to forget that it’s a northern, home-grown ingredient (you never value what’s on your doorstep) and see it as you might Italian faro or Middle Eastern freekeh, then you can appreciate its potential. Oats fried with onions, bacon and Savoy cabbage, served with griddled scallops or herring? Or fried and tossed with purple sprouting broccoli and chopped anchovies that you’ve heated in olive oil until they’re melting? What oats have, as well as goodness, is texture and we often neglect that in a dish. Soft, buttery mash topped with fried oats, onions, bacon and parsley? I’ll take that. Just don’t o er me a flapjack.