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Aunt Dorie’s Fried Porridge

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Aunt Dorie's fried porridge with bacon and saskatoon rhubarb compoteMorning!  I made this on Edmonton AM on CBC Radio earlier this morning.  Aunt Dorie is my great aunt, my mom’s mom’s sister.  She lived with my mom’s family and did most of the cooking for the household.  I wrote a bit more about her generation in this post.  Her fried porridge is delicious and indicative of her generation’s ingenuity, frugality, humility, perseverance, and the enduring love they had for my mom’s generation.  Anyways, enough said!  Here’s the recipe.

Aunt Dorie’s Fried Porridge

Ingredients

  • 180 g steel-cut oats
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 50 g dark brown sugar
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 680 mL water
  • 70 mL heavy cream
  • 2 large eggs
  • 140 g oat flour
  • 2 large eggs
  • 140 g (1 cup) oat flour
  • pinch of kosher salt
  • extra oat flour for dredging
  • bacon fat for frying

Procedure

  1. Combine oats, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, water, and cream in a heavy pot.  Bring to a simmer.  Maintain gentle simmer.  Cook until oats are tender, stirring every few minutes to prevent scorching at bottom of pot.
  2. Remove pot from heat and let cool briefly.
  3. Beat in the eggs.  Fold in the oat flour.
  4. While the mixture is still very warm, pour into a casserole or sheet tray.  Refrigerate overnight.
  5. The next day, cut the set porridge into rectangles.
  6. Dredge each rectangle in oat flour and fry in bacon fat till crisp and golden brown.

This morning I served the fried porridge with this compote.  As she lived her whole life in northern Ontario, I doubt Dorie ever ate a Saskatoon berry…

Saskatoon Rhubarb Compote

  • 450 g saskatoons
  • 225 g rhubarb, the reddest you can find
  • 45 g white sugar
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt

Procedure

  1. Combine saskatoons, rhubarb, sugar, and salt in a small, heavy pot.  Cover the pot and cook until the rhubarb is tender.
  2. Remove the lid from the pot and cook compote over high heat stirring continuously.  The goal here is to get most of the water content evaporated such that there is a thick red sauce that clings to the pieces of saskatoon and rhubarb.
  3. Once there is almost no water content pooling at the bottom of the pot, transfer the compote to jars.

Yield: 2 x 240 mL jars saskatoon rhubarb compote