For anyone not knowing, goetta is by definition a porridge, that can be eaten hot from a bowl similar to cream of wheat or a bowl of oatmeal. OTOH cream of wheat or goetta can be chilled to a solid in a loaf pan, then sliced to desired thickness and fried to accompany eggs at breakfast or as a side dish at any meal. The basic ingredients for goetta are: pork scraps (smoked is nice), or store bought sausage, oats (steel cut & pinhead = the same item), barley (whatever form you like) and seasonings, onion, garlic, marjoram, sage, cayenne (or white pepper) & salt. While searching for this I found a variety of spices to vary to suit your taste. The last Goetta I purchased was Glier's, mine is not as good, YET, but it sure beats paying 2.50 a pound at the store. What I had on hand & used. 3 sm smoked ham hocks, boiled for a couple of hours in 2 quarts of water, for flavor. Remove the hocks, pour off the liquid and rinse pan out, then put broth back on to bring back to a boil, diced and added one medium onion & 5 whole cloves of garlic, added 2 cups of barley (purled) & cooked for 1/2 hour prox, stirring occasionally. Then added 2 cups of oats & continue simmering while cutting pork into small pieces & stirring it in, maybe 2 cups of meat (pre-cooked). This should be getting thick enough to stay where you put it when stirring. If it seems to be getting to dry add water or more broth 1/4 cup at a time, to keep it from burning on the bottom. Add spices to taste, stir them in and turn off heat allowing flavors to blend. When satisfied with flavor & it's somewhat cool, pour into 9 X 13 baking dish & cover, chill in refrigerator till firm. Then cut into large pieces one pound each. This makes approximately 6 pounds (guessing) and it freezes nicely. At the grocery this would be $15.00, the grains cost me $2.50 and some time. Along with being tasty & nutritious this will stick to the ribs ! If anyone is interested in the other spices I would be happy to post them. annie
This reminds me of my grandmother's "scrapple" recipe. Fried in butter with fresh maple syrup on it and rolled into a crepe...what memories.
Porridges use to be alot more popular, than they are today. They are so very good/healthful.... much better than modern day mass produced/extruded boxed cereals, BAD, BAD STUFF! Thanks for sharing! ~W~
scrapple is made with corn instead of oats...that's about the only real difference as far as I've been able to glean from reading... probably a regional thing rather than really a recipe thing. Who hasn't substituted "this" for "that". My family's "goetta" recipe is under the "recipe" section of my homepage www.windridgefarm.us although I like a higher meat to oats ratio and prefer it fried with black pepper as opposed to the rest of my family who like to fry it and pour on maple syrup. Until the internet, I always thought Goetta was a made up term since none of the other kids at school had ever heard of it. As a kid it usually included kidneys and liver which were cheap cuts at the time, actually not that different than a good haggis
My Dad used to make the scrapple type stuff - in his boyhood, corn was king down here, so it's what they used. Oats I would like, as I love oatmeal. Barley, I don't like, as I never ate it as a kid. I never liked creme-of-wheat. On my Navy ship, they tried to pass that junk off on us southern boys calling it 'grits'. We near lynched the messcooks . . . We used it in school art class as paper mache.
this sounds interesting to me.........i have never had this before.i will have to give it a try for sure.thanks for sharing this info.