Savoury Porridge

[Abagorth]

Porridge Oats are a great preppers staple, but as I haven't eaten them for years (decades?) and vaguely remember that I didn't much like them, so I wanted to give them a go before buying kilos.

I bought some instant packets from Tesco with Golden Syrup flavour, it was okay but way too sweet for me (so I left the remaining sachets in the kitchen at work, they didn't last long).

Then last night I was boiling a Gammon Joint (half to be left as plain boiled ham and half glazed with mustard and baked), and wondered as you can make porridge with either water or milk, why not stock? As normal I used the Gammon stock to make Pea and Ham Soup, but I kept 600ml back this time.

This morning I popped around the corner to the local Tesco Metro and picked up a kilo of Scottish Rolled Oats.

I made Porridge in the usual way but swapping out the water/milk for the Gammon stock, then shallow fried some small bits of chopped up ham and stirred them through the porridge. It was lovely much better than the sweet porridge.

I'll experiment with different stock cubes/bouillon powder and see how it goes.

Anyone else here eat savoury Porridge?

[Jamesey1981]

I've not made savoury porridge, but I have added oats to stuff, if you're frying up something that has a lot of fat in it then you can chuck in a handful of oats to soak up the fat and bulk it out, it's nice.

There's also the porridge drawer, make unsweetened porridge, tip it into a container (literally used to be a drawer in the kitchen dresser) to cool and set and then slice it and fry it in bacon fat, or eat it cold, very tasty.

[ukpreppergrrl]

Swap the ham for lamb bits and you're half way to haggis! Oats are used in a great many savoury recipes to bulk them out. Of course traditional porridge is made with salt and water not sugar and milk

[Brambles]

It sounds interesting, but I'm not going to knock what I haven't tried.

I have to agree about the instant porridge, it's rank, far too sweet and powdery.

I often use porridge to replace some of the flour in a crumble topping or use it as a thickener in soups.

My own way of cooking porridge is slowly in water with a pinch of salt stirring constantly. The flourish comes at the end, to serve stir in a couple of spoonsful of Nido dried milk and top with a scant teaspoon of brown sugar. Mmmm lovely.

BTW, the best (and cheapest) porridge can be found in Lidls and Aldi. 38p for 500g and it's good quality oats not powdery bits.

[Abagorth]

Swap the ham for lamb bits and you're half way to haggis!

Yum, I love Haggis, haven't had it for years either. I wonder if you can buy Haggis in a tin?

Edit: Seems you can https://www.amazon.co.uk/Grants-Premium ... B004MXQ7E4 wonder if it is any good?

[Brambles]

Swap the ham for lamb bits and you're half way to haggis!

Yum, I love Haggis, haven't had it for years either. I wonder if you can buy Haggis in a tin?

Edit: Seems you can https://www.amazon.co.uk/Grants-Premium ... B004MXQ7E4 wonder if it is any good?

It's not bad, but not as good as fresh.

[ukpreppergrrl]

My own way of cooking porridge is slowly in water with a pinch of salt stirring constantly. The flourish comes at the end, to serve stir in a couple of spoonsful of Nido dried milk and top with a scant teaspoon of brown sugar. Mmmm lovely.

Ooh that sounds interesting...I bought some Nido a while back whilst it was on special offer in Tescos, haven't used it yet...

BTW, the best (and cheapest) porridge can be found in Lidls and Aldi. 38p for 500g and it's good quality oats not powdery bits.

Yup, +1 for the Lidl oats! I did a taste/texture test of oats when I started stocking food for long term and discovered the Lidl porridge oats were, to my tastes, by far the best of the supermarket oats. And pretty much the cheapest too! Tesco Value on the other hand are the husks and sweepings off the floor! Wouldn't have been surprised if I'd come across a fag butt or two! Wouldn't touch with a barge pole!

[ukpreppergrrl]

Swap the ham for lamb bits and you're half way to haggis!

Yum, I love Haggis, haven't had it for years either. I wonder if you can buy Haggis in a tin?

Edit: Seems you can https://www.amazon.co.uk/Grants-Premium ... B004MXQ7E4 wonder if it is any good?

It's not bad, but not as good as fresh.

Erm...just a heads up...before you pay over a fiver for a tin on Amazon, it's £1.35 at Asda or £1.40 at Waitrose...just sayin'

[Abagorth]

Thanks for the heads up, wasn't really planning on buying any off Amazon, it was just the first link that came up, I will check out my local ASDA and Waitrose, but I haven't noticed it in either and I whilst I wasn't Haggis shopping I was checking out their tin section in detail recently, however they are both relatively small stores, might need to go to bigger stores, further away.

[Deeps]

Erm...just a heads up...before you pay over a fiver for a tin on Amazon, it's £1.35 at Asda or £1.40 at Waitrose...just sayin'

At the risk of black catting, I only buy it when its reduced to a quid a can. Aye, its OK but there's haggis and haggis (same as anything), I'd feel cheated if it was served up on Burns night. Not that I'm that traditional about it all, and being married to a veggie when we do have a haggis (been a good few years now thinking about it) its a 'hippy' one. If I open a tin for a 'full Jock' breakfast if we've got guests round and have some slices of haggis the rest will be used to stuff chicken breasts for the next days dinner. Its a good chicken stuffer, especially when all wrapped in bacon or parma ham.