Not going in THAT direction! and Plan of Attack!
I have been thinking about grinding grain to help the Traveler's Porridge cook faster. BUT in talking with Ken, it's a red herring! I must remember the goal! The goal is to compare the different cooking vessels, not specifically prepare the Traveler's Porridge on the road! So while I want to examine this in the future, I must stick to the goal and FOCUS. At home, I think a soaked barley is the most efficient!
So despite the chances for rain, I am getting close to my deadline for getting this experiment done. One never knows, I may have to repeat it! So tonight, I am soaking barley for tomorrows experiment.
I am also going to prepare the sweet onions and ham stock tonight.
I also need to severely decrease this recipe, I just realized! 4 dl is about 1.7 cups (in American...) I've been test cooking a quarter cup, which makes a small pot. That'd be 0.6 dl or a factor of 6.67 times smaller. So, in order to keep it simple, I am going to increase my numbers by 2, which would be a decrease of (very) roughly 3, which will work out in three different pots!
So 200 g pork. I have some ham that's been in the freezer for a while. I'll measure that out.
75g butter, hmm.
According to this chart: https://savorthebest.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Butter-conversion-chart-2.pdf, it's about 5 1.3 tablespoons of butter! That is not a tiny amount of butter, but given the work I did this morning it makes sense. Those Scandinavians burned a LOT of calories!
4 dl works out to about 1.7 cups. Divide that into 3 is about a half cup for each pot A half cup is about 100 g of barley.
A handful of leeks or ransoms. This is where we go really nuts and substitute a sweet or vidalia onion.
6-8 dl of water. Let's see, that's 600 to 800 ml of water. Perfect! Yesterday's unsoaked barley used 300 ml of water total to make what appeared to be porridge. So soaked barley, should use less, guessing 200 ml each pot, so we are still on the mark with about 1/3 per pot.
So translating the recipe for my needs:
Rinse well and soak 3 x 100 g barley in water. I previously used 500 ml per ~50 g. I had plenty of water left to swirl the barley in. I will soak in about 200 ml water for each vessel, overnight at room temperature.
Boil 200 g ham in 600 ml water. Remove the ham and save the stock for the barley. Mince the ham.
Saute a finely chopped sweet onion in 75 g or 5 1/3 tablespoons of butter.
Divide the onion and butter into the three pots and heat gently on the fire.
Add the soaked barley to the pot and stir gently. Add 1/3 of the ham stock to each vessel. (TBD) ml volume. Boil gently.
After a half hour, add the minced ham. Add 1/3 to each pot.
If desired, add 1/3 apple to each pot.
This is a perfect world. Let's see what happens tomorrow once I actually have to build a fire!
Turn on the water for the hose! Fill a bucket to place next to the fire. Place the trivets in the keyhole. Bring down fire tools, leather gloves, and pot holders. Start a fire. I am going to use newspaper and smaller sticks as tinder inside a "log cabin" of larger wood. I am going to use a modern lighter, since that's not the point of the experiment. (Hopefully my damp wood will light!)
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