Making Oatmeal

[Shel_B]

When I make oatmeal, I add butter to the water and oartmeal, and then cook for awhile. Recently there have been some whitish clumps in the finished product, and I was wondering what they might be and what causes them. Perhaps they are clumps of milk fat ... maybe the heat is too high, or the cooking time too long? Any thoughts on what the clumps are and how to prevent them.

Thanks!

Shel

[David A. Goldfarb]

Not exactly sure about your white clumps, but add the butter at the end. Let it melt a bit and stir it in, and it will taste butterier, and if they had anything to do with the white clumps, then that should take care of that.

[jgm]

I've been thinking about this since yesterday afternoon. The above suggestion, I think, is better than what I was going to offer.

If it doesn't produce the results you would like, my suggestion would be to clarify the butter first, by melting it and skimming off the solids. You can do this in batches and keep it refrigerated. If the whitish clumps go away, you'll have your answer. If not, I'm not sure where to go from there.

[pax]

I cook my oatmeal from groats in a crock pot over night in nothing but water, and add the butter before serving. It's nice when it melts gradually, yummy yummy yummy. No white clumps here.

Please don't think I am making fun of you when I say this, because it happened to me, so I'm really not...but is it possible you mixed up your grain jars and got rice in with your groats or oats or whatever? We had a whole weekful of mystery cereal in the morning.

[Recoil Rob]

I eat only steel cut oats and I toast them in butter before adding water. About 1tbl./cup of oats.

[Shel_B]

As you may have surmised from my original post, I was thinking along the same lines as you, so I made the oatmeal by adding the butter at the end - a definite improvement! Thanks!

Shel

Not exactly sure about your white clumps, but add the butter at the end. Let it melt a bit and stir it in, and it will taste butterier, and if they had anything to do with the white clumps, then that should take care of that.

[Shel_B]

Please don't think I am making fun of you when I say this, because it happened to me, so I'm really not...but is it possible you mixed up your grain jars and got rice in with your groats or oats or whatever? We had a whole weekful of mystery cereal in the morning.

There's no chance of mixing up grains - oats are the only grains in the house.

Shel

[violetfox]

Toasting oats in butter at the beginning -adding a lump of butter when I serve them, with maple syrup and cream.

"You can never have too much butter."

[Shel_B]

Toasting oats in butter at the beginning ...

I eat only steel cut oats and I toast them in butter before adding water.

Well, gang, I'm gonna have to try that toasting technique. Thanks!

Shel

Edited December 1, 2009 by Shel_B (log)