Christmas porridge

In pre-Christmas time and on Christmas Eve we eat Christmas porridge, which is a salty rice pudding served with sugar and cinnamon on top. Some people also like to add butter to it, but I have never tried that variation. It's quite a Nordic tradition, in Finland we have riisipuuro and in Denmark risengrød. I really like eating this rice porridge in this season, but never really eat it outside of the season.

I made a vegan rice porridge this time. I used the thick and creamy iKaffe from Oatly, and it worked out perfectly. Here is my recipe.

Christmas porridge

Ingredients

2 dl water

2 dl pudding rice

1 l oat milk

1 tsp salt

Sugar, ground cinnamon and 1 almond for serving

Method

Heat the water with the pudding rice in a pan. I always use a cast iron casserole for this one, as the porridge can burn quickly, if it gets too hot.

Once the water has absorbed to the rice, add the milk and simmer very slowly for at least 45 minutes.

Season with salt and serve with sugar, cinnamon and a hidden almond. Whoever finds the almond, has a free wish.

Your VegHog

Pearled spelt oven porridge

Savoury porridge is my true weakness. They make such a good breakfast and keep you going for pretty much all day. Here in England people don't tend to understand how much better a savoury porridge is, and they keep adding their sugars and honeys and berries to porridge. Well not me! I made this pearled spelt oven porridge, which takes a bit of time to prepare, but the result is totally worth it. It's the perfect weekend breakfast for me. I normally make this from pearled barley, but now tried with spelt and it was very good too. Have a look at my easy recipe!

Ingredients

1 cup pearled spelt

1 pint milk + some extra for eating

2 tsp salt

Method

Soak the pearled spelt in water overnight.

Next morning pre-heat the oven to 200 C.

Drain the spelt, put it into an oven dish, season with salt and cover with milk.

Reduce the heat of the oven to about 180 C after 10-15 minutes when the milk is slowly simmering.

Bake the porridge for about one hour until the spelt is cooked and most of the milk is absorbed.

The porridge will have a crust made from milk. This can be removed before eating, if you like, but it's fully edible.

Add some cold milk to the hot porridge and enjoy!

The ingredients for this dish are simple and once again, this is a total budget recipe, so I'm sharing this with Credit Crunch Munch hosted by From Plate to Pen this month and co-hosted by Fuss Free Flavours and Fab Food 4 All.

Your VegHog

Yule porridge

A rice pudding type porridge, joulupuuro, is the traditional Christmas breakfast in Finland. It's a must on the Christmas Eve in my family, but it might also be enjoyed on the other holiday mornings. It's served with sugar and cinnamon, and this is the only porridge that I eat sweet. However the porridge itself will be seasoned with salt when it cooks, so it's not fully sweet.

A peeled almond will be added to the porridge and who ever finds it, will be very lucky for the coming year. They can also make a wish, but not reveal it to anyone. Sometimes the almond can be quite tricky to spot, and if you're keen on being lucky, you should just keep eating the porridge.

I wanted to find a very basic recipe for making this, and I followed this recipe by Kotiliesi. I have written it here in English, as the original is in Finnish. 

Ingredients

2 dl water

1 tbsp butter

1 l milk

2 dl pudding rice

1 cinnamon stick (optional)

1 tsp salt

1 peeled almond

For serving: Ground cinnamon, sugar, milk

Method

Use a saucepan with a thick bottom for this, as this porridge can burn very easily. Also remember to stir often although the cooking time is fairly long (a bit over an hour).

Bring the water and butter to the boil. Then add the water and also bring it to the boil. Add the rice and let boil for about 5-10 minutes. Stir the pot constantly during this. At this stage you can also add a cinnamon stick to bring some extra flavour. I skipped this stage, as the porridge will be served with cinnamon anyway.

Let the porridge simmer at low heat for about one hour. Stir it every now and again.

Season the ready porridge with salt.

Add the almond and serve the porridge warm with sugar and cinnamon and possibly some additional cold milk.

Enjoy your breakfast porridge!

Your VegHog

Barley porridge piping hot from the oven

Good morning to you!

The VegHog decided to start its day healthily and make a porridge. You might guess that my favourite porridges are milky and salty and include mainly oatmeal porridge and barley porridge.

Oatmeal porridge is extremely quick to make: Just boil up some oat flakes with milk in a pot, add salt, stir thoroughly as this porridge burns easily at the bottom. After couple of minutes it's ready and such a filling breakfast. Of course you can eat it sweet or with fruits as well but please try the salty one as it's amazing. Accompanied with orange juice it will keep you going for hours!

This morning I feel like having barley porridge like the Hog mother used to make it. I always make this from whole pearl barley grains, and as they are bigger than flakes it takes much longer to boil them soft. There are different ways to pre-prepare the barley: Soak overnight or pre-boil in water in a pot. Boiling in water makes the process quicker but barley might lose on taste. This time I soaked the barley grains overnight and put them straight into the oven after that.

Barley makes a great addition to many vegetarian dishes and it's very nutritious. I haven't used it much elsewhere than in this porridge but would imagine that it's great with soups and stews. Do you have any great barley recipes to share? 

Preparing this porridge is so simple, it may take quite a long time to get ready but you don't have to do much yourself, just wait! Take an oven dish, put barley in there, add salt and fill up with milk but not too full that it doesn't boil over in the oven. The porridge might need couple of hours in the oven at about 150 C but you can check occasionally how soft the barley is. Mine took about an hour today but the soaking speeded the process up.

The baking will build up a brown surface out of milk which you can remove or just eat it. The porridge is very hot when it comes out of the oven and it's nice to pour cold milk on it before eating.

I have the feeling that this way making a barley porridge is Finnish. Have you ever eaten or made oven porridge before? Fancy trying this variation?

This porridge is just right! Have a great day!