Sunday, September 21, 2008

Warm Oat Salad with Apples & Mushrooms

mathavre-lax

Oats is not something I usually cook for dinner, but one of our big grain companies has just put out something they call "mathavre" - "food oats" - on the market. It's similar to wheatberries, but made from oat - I'd imagine it's basically whole oats, parboiled. They cook in just over 10 minutes, and are great to use in salads.

I was asked to create a recipe with it for a competition they're having, and I decided to go with a seasonal warm salad with oats, apples and mushrooms. I served this with pan-fried salmon and a lovely mustardy yogurt crème. First time, we used fennel and bacon instead of the salmon, and that was lovely too, but the fennel was a little too dominant, and the apples didn't come through as much as I wanted. But feel free to fiddle with it as you please!

If you can't get these oats, try it with bulgur, small-shaped pasta, or israeli cous-cous (moghrabi) instead!

Warm Oat Salad with Apples & Mushrooms
Serves 4

200 ml "mathavre" ("food oat") or other large-ish grain
2 large carrots
2 large apples
200 g mushrooms
1 yellow onion
butter or oil for frying
salt, pepper

4 serving pieces of salmon

Mustard Thyme Yogurt Crème
200 ml greek yogurt
1-2 tsp runny honey
1-2 tsk dijon mustard
a few drops of hot chili sauce, like Tabasco
salt
fresh thyme

Cook the oats according to the package instructions. Meanwhile, peel and dice the onion and apples. Peel and slice the carrots thinly, and divide to mushrooms into small pieces. Fry everything in a little bit of oil or butter. When the oats are soft, add them to the other ingredients. Season with salt and pepper.

Season the salmon with salt and pepper and fry for a few minutes on each side in a non-stick frying pan, on medium-high heat to give them a nice, crispy surface.

Stir together everything for the yogurt crème, and top with some extra thyme.

Recipe in Swedish:
Havrepytt med äpple och champinjoner

6 comments:

Myy said...

This sounds very nice and looks, too. I could try it. ;)I like apples. How long idd it took you to make this?

I love your cat. My youngest son moved out and took our cat with him. =/

Anne said...

Myy, it's a really fast dish - about fifteen minutes in total. The oats cook in 12 minutes, and everything else can be done at that time :)

Chubbypanda said...

I've been playing with oats in savory dishes too, after reading a recipe where they coated fish in oatmeal before frying it. The texture ended up being really appealing. Thanks for this dish!

Sara said...

This sounds really interesting, I would have never thought to put oats in a salad.

Katie said...

Your dish looks lovely. I hope you win.
Not heard of food oats before, where are they sold?

Anne said...

Katie, they're new but should be available in pretty much all regular grocery stores here in Sweden. I have no idea if there's something similar available abroad though, sorry!