Brose
2009 May 14
We eat a lot of oats, we eat a lot of soups, and we like to combine both into the Scots dish, brose.
Brose is excellent economy meal that I’ve given recipes for before (chicken brose, kale brose), but this is another variation.
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp unsalted butter
- 2 medium onions, peeled and chopped
- 2 carrots, grated
- 1 stick of celery, chopped
- 100g medium oatmeal (rolled oats will do at a pinch)
- 2 pints stock, boiling (I used freshly made pork stock, but vegetable, chicken, mutton or beef stock will also do the job)
- Salt and pepper to taste.
- 1 pint warmed milk
- Large handful of parsley, finely chopped
Method
- Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a low heat.
- Stir in the onions, carrot and celery. Sweat gently for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Stir in the oatmeal and cook for a further five minutes, stirring frequently.
- Add the boiling stock, a ladleful at a time and stirring well.
- When all the stock has been added, season to taste.
- Put the lid on the pan, turn the heat down to very low and leave the brose to sit for 45 minutes to an hour. Stir occasionally.
- When the oatmeal is soft, stir in the parsley and warmed milk. Serve immediately.
I’ve never heard of brose. But I’m fond of all the Scots dishes I know of (haggis, cullen skink, clootie dumpling and kedgeree – love the names too). What we call oatmeal in the States pretty much *is* rolled oats, unless it’s those abominable quick oats. What exactly is Scottish oatmeal then? I know of pinhead oats, which is a finer grade of what we call steel cut oats. You mention “medium” oatmeal, so perhaps you mean those steel cut oats. Would you kindly enlighten me? I’ve got some homemade lamb stock and it sounds like this dish would suit it.
Oatmeal is what you get when you de-husk, kiln (ie dry) and then mill (ie grind) whole oat grains. There are five grades of oatmeal: pinhead (most coarse) through rough, medium and fine to superfine. The finer grades are used more for baking, the coarser grades for cooking. Medium can be used for either, but it does depend on the recipe.
Rolled oats, aka porridge oats, is what you get when you steam then flattening the de-husked grains.
I haven’t come across steel-cut oats, but when I looked them up they’re made by slicing the oat grains instead of milling them.
Thanks for the explanation, Stonehead. Sounds like I might best try the steel cut oats. It won’t be the same as yours, but it’ll probably be tasty nonetheless. Another Scottish dish to add to my repertoire.
-Kate
The key to brose is to not boil it. If need be, cook your other ingredients first, then add the oatmeal to them or vice versa. Then add boiling stock, boiling water or hot milk to the brose, before letting it stand for sufficient time for the oatmeal to absorb liquid and soften. Traditionally, it would have been left in a warm but not hot spot on the range. I leave it on a hob turned as low as it will go.
I don’t think so… he said pinhead is the *most coarse*, and you wanted to use something finer than that. So I would think the U.S. equivalent would be oat *flour*, right?
@Stonehead: Thanks for the further tips.
@PlantingOaks: Yeah, I got that. I know the steel cut oats will be far larger than what Stonehead’s using. But since that’s what’s available to me, that’s what I’ll use. Oat flour, if I could find such a thing (and I bake with many kinds of flour and never have seen it), would make an undifferentiated slurry, I would imagine. And that just doesn’t sound too appetizing to me. I’ll take a good al dente bite of oats over mush. If it makes you feel better though, I’ll come back and report if the brose with steel cut oats is an unmitigated disaster.
I suspect oat “flour” is probably about the same grade as fine oatmeal, or perhaps superfine. Steel-cut oats appear to be about the same size as pinhead oatmeal.
You could always throw some steel-cut oats in a food processor, then whiz them down a bit. I’ve done that when I need fine oatmeal and only have medium.