Oat (Bran) Cakes

If you want something in your diet with a bit of crunch then this recipe couldn't be simpler. When I've not used up my oat bran allowance for the day, I often do my duty by making these at the end of the evening and have them with a pre-somnial glass of skimmed milk.

The Ingredients

• 30 grams of oat bran
• 30 grams (= 30 ml but weight it, it's more accurate) of freshly boiled water from the kettle.
• A pinch of salt (optional)

The Equipment

• A small mixing bowl
• A teaspoon or fork
• A rolling pin
• A microwave
• Baking parchment or a non-stick microwaveable surface of some kind
• Digital kitchen scales that can measure in grams

The Method

Boil a kettle. Place the mixing bowl on the scale and weight out 25 grams of oat bran, reserving 5 grams for rolling out. Add salt at this point if you wish and mix into the oat bran. Pour in 25 grams of freshly boiled water and work the water into the oat bran with the tea spoon. After a minute, you will end up with a sticky dough ball which will become dryer as you work it and the oat bran absorbs more of the available fluid.

When it's a consistency that looks like it will roll out, dust a board and a rolling pin with some of the remaining 5 grams of dry oat bran. Roll out the dough ball, turning it and redusting occasionally, until it is about 2-3 millimetres thick. It will tend to go ragged at the edges and you could use a cutter to make nice rounds but personally I prefer to leave it as a single, raggedy edged cake as I like to snap it into pieces after cooking.

Once it is rolled to the correct thickness, lift it (in pieces if necessary) onto the baking parchment, place in the microwave and zap it on high for about 2 minutes. My microwave is an 800 watt so you might want to increase the time if you have a lower power machine. Once it is done, remove from the microwave and leave to cool for a few minutes.When it comes out it should be hot and still slightly damp but give it a minute or two and it will go nicely hard and crunchy.

You should now have a mis-shapen but crisp expanse of 'cake' which has the surface area and thickness equivalent of about 3 to 4 traditional, shop-bought oatcakes. Pour yourself a glass of semi-skimmed milk, snap the cake it into pieces and consume with gusto!

Sometimes I spread these with a little fromage frais and sometimes I have them plain.  I always have a drink with them as they are a pretty solid and dense dose of oat bran. Given its capacity to absorb fluid, I worry that if I eat these without a drink then the semi-digested mass might set solid and cause a blockage somewhere on its way through (are you allowed to say things like that in a recipe?)

Regarding storage and variations, as long as they have dried out properly I see no reason why these wouldn't last a few days in a biscuit tin but I make these on demand so the longest shelf-life I can honestly testify to would be about half an hour and they only lasted that long because I was distracted by a phone call. I presume they could also be oven baked in perhaps 15 to 20 minutes but I have never bothered testing this out. The microwave does a stirling job and the big advantage of zapping these is the fact that the total time from desire to satisfaction is generally under 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Oat Bran Flatbread

This one took a fair amount of experimentation. I love the Dukan Gallette but I don't think the eggy taste and relatively soft consistency works well in some settings, so I created an egg-free, oat bran flatbread.

I use this as a replacement for both a chapati when making curries (see my Beef Madras recipe) and instead of the soft corn tortilla that is often part of a mexican meal (see my Heuvos Rancheros and Fahitas recipes). To be fair, it is neither a tortilla nor a chapati but it is similar in texture to both and gives the necessary bite and flavour so I don't think you will mind the compromise, especially since this is high in fibre and entirely fat free.

The Ingredients

• 30 grams of oat bran
• 90 grams (= 90 ml but I prefer to weigh it into the bowl) of boiled water from the kettle
• A pinch of salt (optional)

The Equipment

• A small mixing bowl
• A kettle
• A hob (one ring needed)
• A good, non-stick frying pan
• Digital kitchen scales that can measure in grams

The Method

Boil a kettle and put a non-stick pan over a low heat to start warming it up.

Place a small mixing bowl on digital kitchen scales set for metric and place 30 grams of oat bran in it along with a pinch of salt (if you wish). Add 90 grams of freshly boiled water from the kettle. Stir with a fork until you have a reasonably smooth mixture then leave to stand for a minute or two. You now have a batter that is effectively a thickish, partially cooked porridge. 

Once the pan is up to heat, restir the batter and pour it into the pan. Tilt the pan to run it around and form a roughly flat pancake. The image to the right shows the pan just after the batter has been poured in and 'tilted' around. The pan is a 22 inch French Skillet.

By the way, you can click on the images to get a better look. If you zoom in then excuse the mess, I had just prepared a batch of fat-free hot pepper sauce and was desperate to try some so I cooked this before cleaning up properly!


As it cooks the oat bran mix may bubble in places and it will stick horribly but be patient as it will unstick in its own time. The second image is the pan after about a minute. Note the bubbles forming in the mixture which break to release little eruptions of steam. Don't worry about these, they will sort themselves out as the top is still wet and will flow back over the holes that are formed by this.

After another minute or two you will see the edges starting to lift. The top will still be quite soft and pulpy so just give it another minute or two after which you should find that a gentle shake breaks the pancake free of the pan. Flip it over. You will need to toss it like a pancake as the top will still be soft and pulpy at this stage and although the bottom may be cooked, it will not be strong enough to take manual handling with a spatula. Cook the other side for a couple of minutes and you are basically done.

Flip as often as you want and cook until you get the colour and texture that you want. With time it gradually gets browner and harder and more like a flatbread than a pancake. I suspect if you kept going you would end up with a large oat cake that you could break your teeth on so just stop when it looks like it has a little bit of bite but can still be folded without breaking. It usually takes about 6 minutes for me to go from batter to finished flatbread with a couple of tosses along the way, but I like to keep the pan on a low heat and this will be a factor in the cooking time.

Note that it shrinks a little as you can see in the final image (which is the same mixture as shown in the other images).  This final image is about the right color for me and once it has cooled, this will be a soft but tearable flat-bread that is strong enough to be used to scoop up curry or as part of a mexican dish such as Fahitas or the traditional Mexican breakfast dish Huevos Rancheros, both of which will be covered in later posts on this blog.

Enjoy.

Why?

I have created this blog to share the recipes I have come up with during my 5 weeks (so far) on the Dukan Diet.

This diet has been an inspiration. I am a mid 40s male with a partner and grown up kids who enjoys cooking. When I started on the Dukan diet 5 weeks ago, I expected I would be eating fairly boring foods given the restrictive nature of the ingredients list available to me. Instead I find I am eating better than before with a wider range of breakfasts, lunches and main meals that both I and my partner (who is not on the Dukan diet) can both enjoy.

It is said that great art comes from adversity and constraint.  Just as the finest poetry benefits from a definate form such as the fixed metre and rhyming structure of a sonnet within which the poet's creativity and inspiration is expressed, so I have found the constraints of the Dukan diet in terms of ingredients has forced me to research and in some cases invent new ways of doing old things. 

There are many excellent websites with Dukan friendly recipes out there but on this site I plan to give the recipes of favourites that I didn't expect to be eating until next year (I have a lot of weight to lose!) such as oil-free Indian style curries like my version of a Madras, fat-free Mexican dishes, sauces that can be user sparingly as condiments on protein days and generously as stir-fry sauces on protein+vegetable days, and even biscuits and a flatbread.  This process has made me realise how unnecessary the fats, oils and refined carbohydrates that I previously used in my cooking actually are to preparing a tasty and filling meal. I now have recipes for healthy meals where you do not notice the absence of fats and oils in terms of taste, that I am happy to serve to non-Dukaners, and which I fully expect to still be cooking even after my dieting goals have eventually been reached.

The name of this blog is Fried Porridge. This may seem a little odd, perhaps even off-putting, but it is named for the first recipe I am going to post. This is for a flatbread which is made by dry-frying an oat bran batter which starts off as what is effectively a partially cooked porridge. Disgusting as this may sound, the eventual product is an egg-free alternative to the famous Dukan Galette that can serve as a tasty and filling replacement for both a chappati when cooking 'Dukan Indian' and a tortilla in the Dukan friendly Mexican recipes.

All comments are welcome so if you enjoy any of these recipes then please let me know and please also feel free to post any variations you come up with.

I am thoroughly enjoying the Dukan diet. For the first time in my life I feel like I have the power to decide what weight I will be and I can do this without needing to go through the hassle and pain of calorie counting and feeling hungry all the time. This blog is my way of giving back a little.

I hope you enjoy the recipes.