A watercolour of thick creamy porridge in a bowl with dark chopped dates and a pale swirl of milk
Generated with OpenAI gpt-image-1
Adapted from Scottish porridge

Porridge with evaporated milk and dates

An established dish converted to shelf-stable ingredients. Every substitution is documented below.

How long it keeps

About 6 months, set by Dates (dried, pitted).

Indicative, for planning a build before you buy. The answer for a pack you already own is the best before date printed on it, and that only holds if it has been stored as the label says.

Serves
2
Burners
1
Pans
1
Water
0.6 L
Active
8 min
Total
12 min

Ingredients

Porridge is the cheapest good breakfast there is and evaporated milk is what turns it from worthy into something you look forward to.

The salt is not optional and it goes in at the start. Unsalted porridge tastes of wet cardboard and no amount of sugar fixes it. Two grams for two servings is right.

  1. Oats, 500 ml of water and the salt into the pan. Bring up, then down to a low simmer.
  2. Chopped dates in now, not at the end. They dissolve slightly and sweeten the whole pan rather than sitting in it as lumps.
  3. Eight minutes, stirring often. It thickens suddenly near the end.
  4. Off the heat, cinnamon stirred in, and the evaporated milk poured over in the bowl rather than mixed through.

Pouring it over cold, into hot porridge, is the good version: you get a cool rich edge against the heat. Stirred in it just makes the porridge beige.

Serves 2.

What this was adapted from

Scottish porridge: oats, water and salt, cooked slowly and stirred

  • fresh milk or cream to serve → evaporated milk

    Evaporated milk is milk with about 60 per cent of the water removed, so it is richer than fresh and does the job of cream rather than of milk. It is the single best thing a cupboard can put on porridge and it keeps for a year.