To Cook Oatmeal
Ingredients
Directions
Combine oatmeal and salt in a quart tin pail.
Fill the pail three-quarters full with water and cover it tightly.
Place the pail in a kettle filled one-third with water.
Boil for three hours, stirring two or three times when it first 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
- Provides the starch and fiber that swell in water to form the thick, porridge-like body.
- Water
- Hydrates the oats so their starch gelatinizes and softens during the long simmer.
The step that matters
Stirring while the oatmeal first boils. Oats can settle and scorch on the bottom of the pail early on, and stirring a few times at the start keeps the texture even as the starch thickens.
“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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