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Brose
Description A very traditional meal.
Created by anax, January 1, 1970

Ingredients

At a glance
Difficulty
Easy
Scottish
Oatmeal
  • Oatmeal (medium or rough)
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • Boiling water

Methods/steps

Add boiling water straight from the swye (that metal arm that swings the kettle of the open fire).
Mix it together with the handle of your spoon to a stiff consistency.

Additional Tips

Farm workers would have brose for their 6am breakfast. They'd have their own brose cap, a wooden bowl, commonly turned out of elm wood.

If you were lucky you'd have a cup of farm fresh milk with cream settling to the top.

There are countless variations:
Peasmeal brose - Golden syrup optional (which you might have at High Tea)
Kale and Kale brose - (Kale is a spinach like food, or that would be boiled down - of mixed popularity)
Cabbage and Cabbage brose
Neeps and Neeps brose

These were made by using the bree (or stock) from boiling the vegetable to make the brose, and then you'd have the chapped up (mashed) vegie for the second course.

There's also the Atholl brose:
3rounded tbsp of medium oatmeal
2tbsp heather honey
Scotch whisky

The oatmeal is prepared by putting it into a basin and mixing with cold water until the consistency is that of a thick paste. Leave for half an hour and then put through a fine strainer, pressing with a wooden spoon to extract as much liquid as possible. Throw away the oatmeal and use the creamy liquor from the oatmeal for the brose.

Mix 4 dessert spoonfuls of pure honey and 4 sherry glassfuls of the prepared oatmeal and stir well. (Purists insist on a silver spoon for stirring!) Put into a quart bottle and fill with malt whisky, shake before serving.

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