Porridge Recipe

Porridge recipes are many. After fiddling around with numerous porridge recipes over the years I have settled on the perfect porridge recipe.

Aga Porridge Recipe

Whilst leafing through books in a second-hand bookshop I read an old Aga cookbook. In it, I came across an overnight porridge recipe.

The premise was simple, make your life easier by making porridge the night before. You put cold water, milk and porridge oats in a pan, put it in the simmering oven overnight and when you got up all you need to do was stir and serve! There is just one problem, I don’t have an Aga, but if you have an aga or slow cooker please feel free to try and let me know.

Perfect Porridge Recipe

I had always made my porridge with rolled oats (not porridge oats) jumbo ones and sometimes if feeling like a splurge the organic rolled ones picked up at a farmers market, but I always felt my porridge was a bit bland, it was just an excuse to put lots of sweet things on.

I researched the porridge award winners and discovered they never use porridge outs but always oatmeal (steel cut oats seems to be the American term). I love oatmeal. Oatmeal is used to make oat biscuits, and parkin (another fine Yorkshire recipe). You get Oatmeal in fine, medium and coarse. It is the crushed oat kernel and it can either be milled slightly to create coarse or finely to create fine oatmeal.

Being from the North of England, I prefer the Scottish way of making porridge. My porridge recipe is made with salt and water, the creaminess should come from stirring the oats. Like a good risotto the creaminess comes from the constant stirring of rice. If you are a soft southerner you can use half milk and half water, or if you are just very indulgent (or French) you can use cream, but really, this is breakfast not pudding!

The secret is to toast the oatmeal first, this brings out the nuttiness and fills the kitchen with the smell of hobnobs.

Normally I would have topped my porridge with Golden syrup, brown sugar, jam, maybe even a spiced plum compote if feeling chefy. But whilst in Goa, India I was surprised that out of the choice for breakfast (masala omelette, chai) there always seemed to be porridge with fruit. It looked tasty serving porridge with bits of banana, strawberry and mango. I liked the idea of just putting fresh fruit on. I opted for bananas (small Caribbean bananas have the best flavour).

Perfect Porridge Recipe (for 2)

• 80g oatmeal (I use a mixture of course and medium oatmeal)
• 600ml water
• pinch salt
• banana or two, depending on size
• 1/2tsp of demerara sugar
• splash of milk

• Toast the oatmeal in a pan, until it is fragrant (don’t burn it).
• Boil the kettle and add 600ml of the boiling water to a pan.
• Sprinkle the oatmeal ontop of the water (otherwise it goes lumpy) and stir until it is all dissolved, bring back to the boil and add a pinch of salt.
• Simmer gently for 12 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes. Once the 12 minutes is up stir vigorously for a minute and then leave to cool for 3 minutes.
• Pour into a bowl and add the chopped banana on top, sprinkle with the demerara and top with a splash of milk.

Delicious and very good for you being low G.I, high in fibre, lowers cholesterol, keep you full for longer, having lots of potassium in the banana, and endless vitamins. Try it

UPDATE

I have since adapted this. I now make up a large batch and store in the fridge in a glass jar. Then in the morning you spoon out some porridge and microwave for 1.5 mins till hot. Not only does this make it really speedy in the morning but also the process of letting in cool and storing overnight changes the gluten structure meaning it slows down the glucose spike.