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Oatmeal Porridge

A simple oatmeal porridge made by boiling water with salt, adding oatmeal, and cooling overnight.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Oatmeal Porridge

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the porridge

  1. Boil water in a pot and add a pinch of salt.

  2. Gradually sprinkle oatmeal into the boiling water while stirring continuously until thickened.

Bake overnight

  1. Pour the mixture into a jar and cover the jar.

  2. Place the jar in the oven overnight.

Finish in the morning

  1. In the morning, warm the porridge.

  2. Add boiling water if needed to thin it down.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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
Its starch swells in hot liquid and thickens the porridge into a spoonable texture.
Water
Hydrates the oats so they soften and cook, and sets the final consistency when thinned.

The step that matters

Sprinkling the oatmeal while stirring. Oats added to hot water all at once clump and form lumps, because the outer layer gels before the inside hydrates. Adding them gradually while stirring keeps the flakes separated so they swell evenly and thicken smoothly.

“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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