Oats and groats and other such things

Most classes here at JWU require some sort of outside project, often a small research paper. The latest of these that I did had a subject that many people probably wouldn't consider for academic study. My subject was oats. More specifically, rolled oats, quick oats, and kasha groats.

Largely oats are thought of as kind of a boring food. You'd be hard pressed to find a person who can suffer through a bowl of oatmeal without dumping half a bag of brown sugar into it first. In fact, the vast majority of oats in our country are used for livestock feed.

That said, our fast and furious food culture is somewhat to blame for our upturned noses. While the difference between rolled and quick oats is really very little, there's going to be a definite difference in taste and texture. First, let me explain the difference.

Rolled oats are just that. The groat (ie, the edible grain) is rolled and we have 'oat flakes'. With quick oats (think Quaker brand) the groats are cut up a bit (if you stop production there you have steel-cut groats, which are more popular in Ireland and Scotland) and then rolled (often thinner, too). In essense, quick oats are just smaller than rolled oats. Both are often steamed to par-cook. Rolled oats will have something like a 15 minute cook time, whereas quick oats are done only a few short minutes after being put into boiling water.

I'm not going to try to convince anyone to wake up 15 minutes early to make old-fashioned oatmeal for breakfast, but it's definitely something to try if you've got a few spare minutes. The rolled oats have more flavor (and given that oats are often said to be rather bland, this is a good thing), and also will have more of a texture (in any application, but especially oatmeal). Oats are very starchy, kind of like rice, which is why oatmeal is so creamy. Starch likes to absorb water, and with enough heat (and after absorbing enough liquid) they blow up. Those tiny little bits of starch are what thicken the oatmeal and give you that nice creamy consistency. The main difference in texture here is that, rather simply, the smaller quick oat grains are pretty easy to miss when they're prepared like this. Yeah, you know they're there, but that's about it. Rolled oats, on the other hand, are a bit thicker, and just overall larger, so it gives you more of something to sink your teeth into.

But let's not forget the third subject of research, the kasha. Take some buckwheat groats, roast them, and you've got kasha. Contrary to what you might think, buckwheat is not a wheat. It's not even related to wheat. Actually, it's not even a grain at all. It's a little berry. So what do kasha and oats have in common? That's a good question.

It really comes down to culinary use. Kasha is a big staple in the Middle East and Russia, and sneaks into other cuisines (such as being one of the main ingredients in soba noodles, a nice little noodle from Japan). They can be eaten raw (where they're a bit crunchy and have a slightly nutty flavor), or cooked in water to give a nice fluffy texture.

Now oats and kasha aren't fully interchangeable. I'd throw some kasha in a nice green salad to add a bit of crunch (or even use kasha as a main ingredient in a salad, maybe with orzo), but I wouldn't do the same with oats. They do have some similar uses, though.

Both can be ground into flour and used to add both nutrition and flavor to... well, just about anything you'd put flour in. Note that since it's not wheat you won't have enough gluten to really make a good bread (or rather, a well leavened bread... you'd have a small, very dense loaf), but you can use some of either along with a high protein wheat flour if you want.

Overall a fairly interesting project, if only for the fact that it got me to look at an ingredient that doesn't get a lot of attention.