The Best Winter Breakfast. Period.

There must be some Toros in the atmosphere. I fully expect to be shoveling snow all day today, because this year winter is making an effort. This is the kind of year when I would really benefit from owning a pair of snowshoes.

It’s serious.

This kind of weather brings out the cook in a lot of people. Some will stay home and bake. Others will make stock or soup. I may engage in a little soup making myself later today. I have a few winter squash that are just dying to be simmered with some Thai seasonings and enriched with coconut milk.

But before any of that can happen, you have to have breakfast. And a winter breakfast can be serious too. Eggs with bacon and toast will certainly give anyone enough energy to tackle the tasks at hand. But they say people have heart attacks while shoveling snow, and I don’t want to tempt fate.

Instead, allow me to recommend the greatest oatmeal you’ve ever had in your life.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about oatmeal. Except, oddly, the first time I posted the recipe was in July of 2009. It was a reader request, which only goes to show how far I will go in support of my readers.

First, you should know that this isn’t any ordinary run-of the-mill oatmeal. Nor is it some kind of gussied up, let’s-put-all-kinds-of-junk-in-a-bowl-of-oats-and-call-it-something-fancy oatmeal. No. This is a simple and honest preparation of steel cut oats. But if you do it right, you too, like others before you, will swear that it should be called something else entirely, because this is too good to simply be called oatmeal.

The catch? It takes time. Sorry, there’s nothing that can be done about that. Good things come to those who wait. And ironically, the quick version of this dish takes even longer.

You may not have the ingredients you need on hand today to make this. I wish I had stayed on top of the weather a little better and urged you to run out to the market for steel cut oats, milk, and salt. Regular rolled oats cannot be used as a substitute in this dish. So if you look into the pantry and all you see is a smiling Quaker staring back at you, you are just out of luck.

The secret? Toasting the steel cut oats in butter. I can’t even begin to tell you how good that smells. What follows is verbatim from my original post, here for your convenience.

This is yet another technique straight out of Cooks Illustrated.  I urge you, yet again, if you are not a paid subscriber to their online site, to do it now.  It is truly a wonderful resource.

Here is what you do.  You take three cups of water and one cup of milk, and put them in a big saucepan.  The recipe calls for whole milk, but I have used skim without catastrophic failure.  Gently bring the liquid to a simmer.  This part will go faster if you cover the pan.

In a cast iron skillet melt a generous tablespoon of butter.  Then stir in a cup of steel-cut oats.  Keep stirring as they toast on medium heat, until they are golden.  You want them toasted, not burnt.  Recently I have been observed using a buttery olive oil for this step, with reasonably good results.  But butter is better.

When the oats are nice and toasty, dump them into the simmering liquid.  Gently simmer uncovered on about medium-low for about twenty minutes, until the oatmeal “resembles gravy.”

Add ¼ teaspoon of salt and stir occasionally until almost all the liquid is gone and the oatmeal has achieved a “pudding-like consistency” which you might expect to see after seven to ten minutes.  I usually simmer mine quite slowly, so everything takes even longer.

When it’s done, take it off the heat, and let it sit uncovered for about five minutes.  This will give you time to get my favorite topping – dark brown sugar. I love the way the sugar crumbles.  I poke some of the clumps of brown sugar beneath the surface of my bowl.  And as I am eating, I get to encounter several joyful pockets of molten brown sugar.

The only downside to this recipe, besides the time it takes to prepare: it will ruin you for all other oatmeal forever.

Enjoy.

I just had two steaming bowls this morning, and now am prepared to take on the world. That is if by “the world” you mean the cooking projects on deck for today. Anything more ambitious may require some more coffee.