To Cook Oatmeal
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
In a quart tin pail, combine oatmeal and salt.
Fill the pail three-quarters full with water and cover it tightly.
Place the pail in a kettle filled one-third with water.
Cook
Boil for three hours, stirring two or three times when it begins to boil.
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
- Forms the body of the porridge as its starch swells and thickens in water.
- Water
- Hydrates the oats and carries the heat that cooks them into a soft porridge.
The step that matters
Boil for three hours in a water bath. The pail must sit in a kettle with water kept at the boil, and the cover kept tight, so the oats cook gently without scorching or drying out. Stirring while it first boils helps prevent sticking and uneven cooking.
“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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