Oat Meal Gruel
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pick the oat groats, removing all hulls.
Wash the groats in cold water.
Cook
In a tin saucepan, combine the groats, 1 quart of cold water, and salt.
Cover the saucepan and place it in a larger saucepan with boiling water.
Boil for 1.5 hours, ensuring the water in the larger pan remains boiling.
Strain
Strain the gruel through a fine wire sieve.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Oat groats
- Provide the starch and body that thicken the gruel as they cook down in water.
- Cold water
- Hydrates the groats so they soften and release starch during the long gentle cook.
The step that matters
Keep the water in the larger pan boiling. The outer pan of boiling water gently heats the covered inner saucepan. If it stops boiling, the gruel cooks too slowly and may not soften the groats fully over the long cook.
“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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