Can this porridge be saved?
Mar. 2nd, 2011 06:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
So I bought this nine-grain porridge stuff at Great Harvest, and this morning I made myself a bowl. I figured I could do my current standard for porridge stuff (a little milk, chopped pecans, dried blueberries, chopped dried apricots) and then go from there once I'd had a bowl like that and was clear on what flavors might go well with it.
It is so salty.
It's like when you go to order grits and the waitress looks at your northern self dubiously and tells you they come with butter and are not like northern food and you say that's fine but it's a cheap restaurant and what she means is that they come with butter and a good half the annual output from the salt flats at the Great Salt Lake. Only there are a bunch more grains in there.
Possibly this analogy is not of great use to everyone.
Seriously, these are salty enough that I would mix in a little cheese and serve them as a dinner side if I lived with people who would put up with that nonsense. (There is very little of my nonsense that's off-limits here, but I believe quinoa is as far as they'll go for savory dinner porridge.) Maybe as the rest of my lunch when I'm eating brussels sprouts? Or, I don't know. I'm asking for your help, lj people. Surprisingly salty whole-grain porridge. Cheesy lunch? Some magical fix for breakfast? Passing it on to a local friend with a higher salt tolerance than I (which is, like, everybody, but you will have to speak up personally)? Or throwing it all out as a failure and going back to my beloved barley porridge for tasty reliable breakfast on chilly mornings and all my other possibilities for non-chilly mornings and lunch?
It is so salty.
It's like when you go to order grits and the waitress looks at your northern self dubiously and tells you they come with butter and are not like northern food and you say that's fine but it's a cheap restaurant and what she means is that they come with butter and a good half the annual output from the salt flats at the Great Salt Lake. Only there are a bunch more grains in there.
Possibly this analogy is not of great use to everyone.
Seriously, these are salty enough that I would mix in a little cheese and serve them as a dinner side if I lived with people who would put up with that nonsense. (There is very little of my nonsense that's off-limits here, but I believe quinoa is as far as they'll go for savory dinner porridge.) Maybe as the rest of my lunch when I'm eating brussels sprouts? Or, I don't know. I'm asking for your help, lj people. Surprisingly salty whole-grain porridge. Cheesy lunch? Some magical fix for breakfast? Passing it on to a local friend with a higher salt tolerance than I (which is, like, everybody, but you will have to speak up personally)? Or throwing it all out as a failure and going back to my beloved barley porridge for tasty reliable breakfast on chilly mornings and all my other possibilities for non-chilly mornings and lunch?
no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 01:00 pm (UTC)1. Mix it up with some sausage (and cheese) and eggs and serve it that way
2. Try rinsing it off really well before cooking it, in case you can rinse some of the salt away?
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Date: 2011-03-02 02:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 02:43 pm (UTC)At that point, I feel like giving the stuff away is the better choice.
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Date: 2011-03-02 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-03-02 01:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 02:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 02:10 pm (UTC)Quinoa might do. I'll have to see how cranky I feel at the prospect of adulterating my quinoa.
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Date: 2011-03-02 02:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 02:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 02:09 pm (UTC)Totally got your analogy. :)
Date: 2011-03-02 02:15 pm (UTC)I'm not clear if you fruited it yet? If you did, then the above and my other thoughts will probably not work/be yucky.
Depending on the grains, could it become a soup base?
Toss in some barley/oats/something to stretch it and make it not salty/spread the salt around.
Re: Totally got your analogy. :)
Date: 2011-03-02 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 02:18 pm (UTC)Lunch with sprouts sounds very tasty. We kind of love roasted sprouts around here.
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Date: 2011-03-02 02:24 pm (UTC)If I had a salty porridge problem....
Date: 2011-03-02 02:49 pm (UTC)Re: If I had a salty porridge problem....
Date: 2011-03-02 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-03-02 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 02:57 pm (UTC)2) Indian things work well with strong salty, strong sweet and strong spicey. My dad and I make a breakfast "porridge" with an Indian recipe and think it turns out best with 9 grain cereals and the like. I could give the recipe if you're interested.
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Date: 2011-03-02 02:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 03:08 pm (UTC)(But then I suppose I may have odd ideas about breakfast.)
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Date: 2011-03-02 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 06:09 pm (UTC)Is it too salty to be mixed with sugar and used as topping for something like an apple crumble? If so, how about mixing with herbs and baking on top of a
casserolehotdish?no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 04:12 pm (UTC)I'd probably do as others have suggested and use it like I would polenta - top it with cheese and/or tomato sauce and/or sauteed mushrooms.
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Date: 2011-03-02 04:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 05:29 pm (UTC)One of the first stories in it is about how the Peterkin family deals with a cup of coffee that accidentally got salted rather than sugared. They experiment with many additions and solutions with no success until the Lady from Philadelphia eventually suggests throwing it out. Which they do.
I'm with her.
(And I'd probably complain to the manufacturer -- I hate oversalted food unless it's supposed to be that way, like chips or crackers).
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Date: 2011-03-03 05:12 am (UTC)Apparently my grandfather took his mischief more seriously than his coffee.
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Date: 2011-03-03 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-03-02 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 08:15 pm (UTC)I was at an Indian buffet for lunch last Friday and they had something called Tomato Bath (but I think based on Internet searching, they meant Tomato Bhat). It was a very tasty side dish involving a base of cream of wheat, tomatoes, cashews, and non-hot spices like a garam masala.
This discussion reminds me there is polenta in the fridge, and it is lunchtime...
no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 08:57 pm (UTC)Some breads or muffins call for cooked grains; possibly if one left the salt out that might work. But I'm not sure how much experimenting, potentially wasting good ingredients as well as bad ones, you want to be doing.
Geeze, you can't even give it to the birds with all that salt.
P.
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Date: 2011-03-02 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-02 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 01:56 am (UTC)I mean, I recently had a similar problem and was horrified. I haven't come up with how to fix it either. I bought instant grits thinking it was basically corn meal finely ground. Nope. So much salt I couldn't understand why you would eat it. I'm probably going to give it away.