Potato and Groats Porridge
The beginning of this porridge is considered to be in the first half of the 19th century. It is believed that this was done in such a way that the new, valuable food product, potatoes, had to be saved and used less, and therefore all sorts of stews where different crops were used were made from it. Mulgimaa, in the center of Estonia, considers this porridge primarily as its regional food, but now it is one of the national dishes of Estonia.
Historically, it was made by mixing barley groats and potatoes in equal quantities. This kind of porridge should be too gluey and modern variants are most probably tasting better.
I made this porridge at Mart Ustav country house in Andresjärve for the company’s family day celebration. We served it with fried ham and onions and with grilled meat which is very traditional for these events.
The food photographer was Kiira.
Preparation time: 1.5 hours, plus time for soaking the groats
Level: easy
Serves: four
Ingredients:
1.5 kg of potatoes
150 g of barley groats
Salt to season
about 50 ml of oil
Sauce:
200 g of bacon or smoked ham
2 medium onions
Preparation:
1. Soak the groats overnight in cold water.
2. Peel the potatoes and cut into four pieces, place in a soup pot, and cover with soaked barley groats
3. Add enough water to exactly cover the layer of groats. In this way, it is usually not necessary to add or remove water from the porridge. The groats must not be mixed with the potatoes, as they will burn at the bottom of the soup pot.
4. Boil the porridge until the potatoes are very tender and break when touched with a fork.
5. Remove the porridge from the heat, add salt and oil and mix the porridge. In general, it is not necessary to porridge smasher. This porridge should be made in such a way that some of the potato pieces remain almost intact and it is not completely homogeneous.
6. Fry the ham in a pan until crispy, chop the onion with additional onion and fry for a few minutes with the ham.
Use parsley for garnish.
Ready !!
