After seeing the Food Channel’s Good Eats episode on oats a couple of time, I finally found some.
Tried the recipe that calls for toasting the oats in butter first and then adding 3 parts boiling water and then 1 part dairy (2% milk was plenty rich enough for me).
Turned out great! Next time I’m going to add some dried cranberries. Anybody have any other suggestions? For toppings or entirely different recipes?
I thought irsh oatmeal was using Irish Cream instead of milk. That doesn’t sound bad really. A cup of Kahlau hot chocholate too.
Awesome stuff, isn’t it? Almost bears no relation to that pastey stuff that comes in packets.
I just like it with brown sugar and milk—but just sprinkle the sugar on top and pour in some milk and don’t stir them in, so in differnent bites you have warm, chewy oatmeal and little lumps of sugar contrasting with the cool milk and . . . drowns in a puddle of drool
I also just like it with a spoonful of jam or preserves swirled in, with or without milk on top.
Something else to try: just before it’s done, stir in a tablespoon or two of almond butter and 1/4 c frozen blueberries per serving. It tastes very rich and decadent, in a “Natural Foods”-aisle-of-the-grocery-store way. It’ll provide enough fuel to see you through to lunch I promise. (Or, I confess, I sometimes eat it for dinner.)
Recipes? Is this something I can make at home with regular quaker oats? I’ve seen Irish Oatmeal for sale at the grocery store, but haven’t tried it. I loves me some oatmeal, especially on winter mornings.
Oh dear god it’s good. I use the Good eats all night recipe in the slow cooker. Put in some brown sugar, cinnamon, and a little maple syrup and it’s the best damn breakfast on a cold morning.
Forgot to add, it’s not something that you can do with Quaker. The oats in question are steel cut oats and entirely different from the quakers. Spend the extra money thought. It’s worth it as a once in a while breakfast.
And be aware - it’s not something you can whip up in a hurry. While it’s not difficult, it is time consuming because they have to be simmered for a long time. Figure on an hour of cooking, IIRC. Or, if you want it right away in the morning, use a slow cooker method to cook them overnight, like Harborwolf mentioned.
Just so people know the difference, steel-cut oats are oats that have been cut into 2 or 3 pieces. The oatmeal that most people are used to is made of rolled oats. Rolled oats are steamed and then pressed with a roller. (Instant oatmeal is rolled oats that have been pre-cooked then dried) This brings the cooking time down considerably from steel-cut oats, but changes the texture a lot. If you’re expecting the oatmeal you probably grew up with, you will likely be either very disappointed or pleasantly surpriesed.
Regarding the cost, if you have a grocer that has bulk bins of dry goods (nuts, flour, etc.), you can usually find them there much more cheaply. Sprouts, for example, is a store that carries them this way.
Oooh, Podkayne, almond butter. Sounds yummy.
And here’s a picture so people can get a visual:
http://www.minohonosaru.com/oatmeal/oatsteelcut.jpg
I can usually cook steel cut oats in about 25 minutes. 'Course, I kind of like them with a little texture. Oat groats, however, will require a good hour or more of cooking, even with an overnight presoak. Using a pressure cooker will cut your cooking time in about half or less, but I’m personally not too excited about pressure cookers for safety reasons.
As for recipes: honeyed molasses, or cinnamon and maple syrup is normally how I serve it. I don’t generally use raw dairy products, so cream is out (for me), but you could try candied pecans or walnuts, or just plain fresh berries. I’ve also had them with Jameson and lemon, but that’s obviously not the breakfast of champions if you’re going to be hitting the road; that’s more of a palliative than a working morning meal.
Stranger
My favorite way to eat oatmeal. Just so good! I like it with sweetened berries and milk, too – raspberries, or blackberries, or both. Not strawberries in oatmeal, though (although I like strawberries in cold cereal – I think it’s that I don’t care for warm strawberries).
I’ve never had the steel-cut oats, though. I use Quaker Oats – not quick oats, or, Og forbid, instant oats – the regular rolled-oats kind. I hadn’t realized there was such a big difference. It’s worth the extra bucks?
Does anyone have a link to the Good Eats recipe? I suppose I could search the foodtv site but it always moves way too slow for me.
I’ve been wanting to try some real oatmeal. I tried some quick cooking rolled oats but the problem is that you have to cook at least a couple servings to fit it in the pan and then the leftovers aren’t as good. The quick cooking wasn’t as chewy as I hoped.
Are the steel cut leftovers okay? What other things can you do with leftover oatmeal?
Other cooking methods for steel cut oats:
Presoak: Before bed, bring the water to a boil, turn off the heat, add the oats, put the lid on, and let them sit over night. In the morning, bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes.
Pressure cooker: Put the oats and water in a metal bowl that fits inside your pressure cooker. Cover it tightly with aluminum foil and place it on a rack in the cooker with 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring up to pressue and cook 20 minutes. Allow the pressure to come down on its own. (The whole metal bowl rigamarole is because oats, like other grains, produce foam which can block your pressure cooker’s valve. Check your owner’s manual for the manufacturer’s recommendations for cooking grains.) IMHO this is inferior to the presoak method, but I’m rarely organized enough to presoak. :-/
You can also make a big batch of oatmeal on the weekend, and reheat individual servings each morning. Tastes almost as good as fresh. You can cook raisins or dried cranberries or dried apricots in with the big batch, but add fresh or frozen fruit or nuts as you reheat. And take my word for it: almond butter does not reheat gracefully.
Jess, steel-cut oats : rolled oats :: rolled oats : quick oats. If you are an oatmeal lover, you will not regret picking up some steel-cut oats—except that it might spoil you so that you won’t want to go back to the rolled oats!
Here’s the transcript: http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/Season5/Oat/OatTranscript.htm. Enjoy!
Mmmm. I buy em in bulk. Totally ruined “oatmeal”–the pasty, gooey kind with the smiling Captain-Kangarooey dude on the cardboard cylinder–for me. I like em with butter, brown sugar, and a little half+half.
Also love experimenting with other ingredients: any kind of dried fruit, cooked with; any kind of syrup. Made some pear syrup a while back that worked well. Made some rhubarb syrup recently that wasn’t a good match with the oats.
One pointer: salt chemically alters the way the oats absorb water. So add salt AFTER cooking, for taste, not before.
Oatmeal? In Ireland, it’s usually known as porridge or, more often, stirabout: pronounced “sturr-about”.
In my ancestral home in the County Westmeath, the method is to make it the night before and leave it simmering on the range - a Stanley number 7, which is fuelled by turf (“peat”). On the morrow, after the range has been fired up again, the stirabout is re-heated and served. Unfortunately, the sole remaining aged aunt usually makes it with 100% water; I prefer one-third water, two-thirds milk myself. The brand of choice is Odlums with the distinctive stylised owl on the front, a bag of which I must bring back when I’m over there at the end of November.
In England, in the absence of Odlums, my dad allowed to eat only Quaker Oats.
Thanks for the feedback! I’m a little confused though …
The link above skipped from groats to thick rolled without showing steel-cut.
Also an earlier jpg of steelcut oats show some that are coarser than the pinhead that I have. Are pinhead a more refined steelcut oat?
Note that the Good Eats recipe calls for adding boiling water to the toasted oats which seemed to cut the prep time down to about 15 minutes.
I’m going to go whip up a batch right now …
Well, I had to go to three stores, but I finally found some – I should have just gone to the Air Force commisary to start with – I know they carry it there. Probably cheaper too – I paid 8 bucks for this tin of Irish Oats! Anyway, now to decide which method to use to prepare it for my breakfast tomorrow…
So this McCann’s Quick Cooking Irish Oatmeal I’ve been enjoying so much is really just a dumbed-down, green-beer version of The Real Thing? Like putting soda and a twist in your Jameson’s?
Yikes! Don’t do that to a lad! Now I’m going to have to expunge that image from my imagination.
Don’t ever say that again. This is your last warning.
Stranger