Saturday 27 March 2010

Traditional food - Porridge


During my childhood - like many other Norwegian families - we ALWAYS had porridge for lunch at 1 pm on a Saturday.

For many years my mother had a cafe and catering business, and porridge was always on the menu on Saturdays. Later she sold the cafe and opened a clothing shop (yes, a very resourceful and independent woman). This was in the days before the late opening hours most places have these days - actually not more than about 10 years ago... - and we would close the shop on Saturdays at 1 pm. One of us (my mother, my sister or myself) would have had the day off and prepared the porridge.

I try to maintain some of the older, traditional Norwegian recipes in my own household, but I make slight changes to them as we don't use so much fat and butter in our diet anymore. Porridge is always a hit. We serve it with a knob of butter, cinnamon sprinkle and sugar and you would normally serve a red berry juice or cordial to accompany the meal. I cook the porridge  with skimmed milk and that works just as well as a more full fat variety of milk.

1,5 l of milk
1 3/4 dl of rice (short grain variety)
3/4 tsp of salt


Rinse the rice and add it to the boiling milk (stirr constantly and use a non stick pan!!)
Bring it to the boil and let it simmer for about 1 hr. Make sure you stirr occasionally.
Add the salt.

TIPS:
I suggest you double this recipe and use the leftovers in a pancake batter to make "Lapper" - or literally translated : "Patches".

Or whip some cream and mix in a few spoons of the cold porridge to make a traditional dessert "Riskrem"  served with a cold red sauce of pureed berries- I think you can figure out the English translation of that...

You can also make the porridge in a slightly different way:
I sometimes prepare it in the morning in the following way: after the milk has reboiled after adding the rice I take it off the stove and wrap it in a blanket. When you come home in the afternoon you just need to reheat the porridge and it is all done!




5 comments:

  1. Blir helt nostalgisk, jeg! Risengrynsgrøt på lørdager var fast kost hos oss også. Blir lite av det her i gårdenfordi sønnen ikke tåler melk. Går an å lage det med soyamelk, men blir ikke helt det samme.

    God påske:)

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  2. Jepp, samme her... risengrynsgrøt var fast på lørdags formidag, så ble det som regel kylling, pizza eller noe annet til kvelds... Heldig du som har hjelp i huset da... skulle ønske jeg også hadde det. Men det er som du sier kjekt å tilbringe tid sammen med familien, særlig når man har jobb og skole. Beundrer folk som får dette til. Takk for koselig hilsener inne hos meg, setter stor pris på dem... Ønsker deg en fortsatt fin helg og en God Påske! Klem fra Mette

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  3. Lørdagsgrøt hender det fremdeles at vi har her også. SÅ koselig at du tar vare på tradisjonene. God påske til deg og dine;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Så flott at du holder på tradisjonene, da! Selv husker jeg at min søster og jeg ble tvunget til å spise risengrynsgrøt hver lørdag - fordi det bare skulle være sånn. Og da min mor døde og jeg overtok husstellet i en alder av 18 år fortsatte jeg. Selv om vi begge to hatet grøt!!!

    har forsøkt å gjenoppta tradisjonen her, men det ser ut som om dagens unger ikke nødvendigvis er så veldig glad i grøt. Synd, men også heldigvis... :-)

    Ha en flott påske!!

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    Mahvash
    xx

    ReplyDelete

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