Wonderful things, oats. You hear their praise sung all over the internet, that a bowl of porridge will keep you going for ages. Personally I don't find that, and find I get hungry quickly. Hence this recipe, because I personally don't get that with cornmeal porridge and find I don't get hungry for ages, despite the incredible amount of sugar in this recipe. It's a recipe what I came up with myself, because the recipes I found online seem to make it unnecessarily difficult. They also seem to require things I couldn't find in the shops.
You need cornflour - personally I use the course sort. You can find it among the Caribbean foods in the supermarket. If you live somewhere that isn't ethnically diverse it's just polenta. Cornflour is yellow but you can make it with maize flour, which is white and then you have the porridge called mielie pap in South Africa.
You need less of it than you think, about half a cup for one person.
You add sugar or artificial sweetener - more than you think you should because cornflour isn't very sweet. If you want to reproduce the flavour of the instant pots of this you find, add some banana milkshake or cinnamon.
You can wet it with milk or personally I use milk powder and water from the kettle. It needs to be more wet than you would think, certainly wetter than oat porridge ready to cook.
If you're doing it on the hob just heat it gently, stirring frequently until thickened. There is absolutely no need for the lengthy cooking times you read in recipes which aren't sensible like this one. Gentle heat because it tends to spit.
If you do it in the microwave give it three or four blasts of 30 seconds on full, stirring in between, until it's thick.
At this point add some condensed milk which is the authentic secret ingredient.
Incidentally I must be old because I love both condensed and evaporated milk and see that the internet have rediscovered condensed milk sandwiches.
Totally unrelated to the subject, have a Madam and Eve cartoon about the mother's ongoing war with the mielie lady:
Blaaargh! Porridge (especially with evaporated/condensed milk!). A more ghastly concoction I never did see/poke/stab-with-a-fork.
ReplyDeleteYour cartoon issomewhat subject-related as you did mention that you could substitute maize flour in the recipe. (See, I did read the post ;) )
LOL if you can stab it with a fork you've gone slightly overboard.
DeleteThat sounds, thick. The popular thing around here is Quick-cooking Steel cut oats. Only 7 minutes in the pot. I add ground flax for added benefits omega 3 and 6 and a bit of protein. My favorite is grilled peaches and maple syrup. If I'm lazy, then maple and brown sugar or just 2 tablespoons of raspberry preserves. Always a splash of milk to taste.
ReplyDeleteI agree that its one of those breakfasts that doesn't stick in the gut very long, so making it a smaller portion and adding something on the side to help round it out helps. I like Skyr yogurt or Morningstar Veggie bacon. (I don't eat meat, only the occasional fish now and then, a pescatarian.)
All great stuff. I like the sound of grilled peaches!
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