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Crowdie
(Scotland.) Skim the fat from 2 quarts mutton broth, add 1/2 pint of oatmeal and 2 onions chopped fine, salt, pepper, and parsley. Cover; cook 3 hours; strain it, and serve with slices of toast.
A thickened mutton broth rather than the fresh cheese most people now mean by crowdie. It is very simple, and nearly everything depends on the oatmeal you choose and how long you actually cook it.
- Half a pint of oatmealThat is one US cup by volume, roughly 5-6 oz depending on the cut. The recipe does not say which grind; pinhead (steel-cut) or medium oatmeal suits it better than rolled oats, which will dissolve into paste here.
- Two quarts of brothAn American book, so 8 cups. Skim it cold if you can; the fat lifts off in a sheet from chilled mutton stock far more cleanly than it can be spooned from hot liquid.
- Three hours is a hearth timingPinhead oats are soft in 30-40 minutes and the onion is gone well before that. Long, slow cooking of this kind suited a pot left at the side of a range. An hour on a modern burner, lid on, gives much the same result without reducing the broth to sludge.
- StrainingStraining out the oatmeal and onion is what makes this a clear-ish supper broth rather than porridge. Pressing the solids through the sieve instead would give a thicker, greyer soup; the recipe as written wants the thin version.
- ParsleyAdded at the start it will cook to nothing and be strained out, contributing only a background note. If you want it to show, hold some back and scatter it chopped over the bowls.
- SeasoningMutton broth made without salt needs a good deal at the end, and the oatmeal absorbs more than you expect. Season after straining, not before.
- YieldAbout four to six bowls as a first course, two as a supper with the toast. Mutton is hard to buy in the US; lamb neck or shoulder makes a close, slightly sweeter stock.
Crowdie is one of those Scots words that has done several jobs at once. Most often today it names a fresh soft cheese made from soured milk, but it is also used, and is often said to have been used earlier and more broadly, for a mixture of meal and liquid ao oatmeal stirred into water, milk, or, as here, broth. The dish belongs to a kitchen where oatmeal was the default thickener and starch; broth, oats and an onion were the reliable bones of a Scottish weekday dinner. The entry has the compressed, second-hand quality of a recipe copied from a source rather than cooked from memory a no cut of oatmeal specified, no quantity of parsley, and a three-hour cooking time nobody would need.