Porridge
Ingredients
Directions
Make the porridge
Mix the oatmeal with a small teacup of cold water until smooth.
Pour the boiling water into the mixture in a saucepan.
Boil and stir for 40 minutes.
Serve
Serve hot in a soup plate and add cold milk to adjust the temperature.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Oatmeal (in the method)
- Coarse oat particles swell and thicken into the body of the porridge as they cook.
- Boiling water
- Hydrates the oats and gelatinizes their starch, setting the porridge's thick texture.
- Cold milk
- Adds richness and cools the hot porridge to a comfortable eating temperature.
The step that matters
Stirring while the porridge boils. Oat starch settles and scorches on the pan bottom if not stirred during the long simmer, and stirring also keeps the texture smooth rather than lumpy.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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