[Sca-cooks] Buttered wortes

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Feb 6, 2010, at 12:33 PM, Michael Gunter wrote:

> 
>> Off the top of my head, the only example I can think of for putting oats in with greens is in some of Markham's meat pottages which also contain mixed greens and oats, IIRC. I'm sure there are other examples...
>> 
>> Adamantius 
> 
> 
> I made a beef and lamb pottage with barley for Atenveldt Coronation. Some 
> 
> people loved it but I really didn't like it. Too slimy and the flavor was off.
> 
> Next time I'll try steel cut oats and I think it will be much better.
> 
> 
> 
> Gunthar

Both oats and barley can acquire a bitter aftertaste (basically due to rancidity in the trace of oils left after degerminating, I suspect). And both have a touch of a mucilaginous quality on things thickened with their starches (know what flummery is???). Some of that may simply be a failure to meet people's expectation that all grains are the same and everything behaves like wheat, which of course it doesn't.

I think the thing to do is make sure you've got good quality ingredients and use them with a light hand until you know what they'll do. Probably a pretty good rule for almost everything.

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls, when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter