Who doesn’t love a good porridge for breakfast? Traditional Scottish porridge is plant-based, so no milk involved. They cook the oats in water with salt. I went with this tradition and added a legendary Turkish combination to this: tahini with molasses or “tahin pekmezi” in Turkish. It is so good I find the world should know about this! First off, when making porridge the water ratio is key. The traditional rule is a double liquid to solid ratio. However, I like to add a little more since the oats do soak up quite a bit of water: 3/4 of a glass of oats cooked in 1 3/4 glasses of water per person yields a perfectly smooth porridge with consistency. You can also just try and see what you like best!
Tahini & Molasses
Mixing some tahini or nut butter into the porridge adds wonderful creaminess!
Ratio, again, is important when combining tahini and molasses. I love a 1:1 ratio. It’s sweet and creamy but even if you spoon it you get overwhelmed, neither by the sweetness, nor the fat. For the molasses, you can use a mulberry, grape, cane or carob molasses. Basically anything with a sweet, dark and deep flavour. Traditionally, it’s done with grape, mulberry or carob, depending on the region. You can find some other inspiration for how to use it here. In Turkey, you can buy this combination in supermarkets. Usually, it goes on bread for breakfast. So why not on oats for breakfast?
Serves two. Prep time: 20 min
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 glass oats
3 1/2 glass water
salt
4 tbsp tahini
4 tbsp molasses
8 dried figs
2 handful walnuts
1 tbsp honey/maple syrup/molasses
METHOD
Add the oats, salt and water in a saucepan, let boil and then simmer for 10-15 min. Stir occasionally. In the meanwhile, chop the figs and combine the tahini with the molasses. Set a pan on medium heat, break up the walnuts with your hand, roast them until they get some colour, add the figs, the honey, a tiny pinch of salt if you like, stir for a few seconds and turn off the heat. Check on the oats. If there is still a little bit of liquid around, that’s fine. The porridge will thicken as it cools down. Combine two spoons of the tahini-molasses-mixture with the porridge. When putting the porridge into a bowl add half of the portion, then a spoon of the tahini-molasses-mixture, then more porridge and again the mixture together with the figs and walnuts. Enjoy your breakfast!
Did you like this recipe? Here is another breakfast idea inspired by a Turkish pudding.