I started eating a savory oatmeal back in 1981. I was doing my culinary apprenticeship at The Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia and remember training on breakfast station, cooking eggs for 1,200 people daily.
One morning, I was craving my mom’s jook, so I went to get a bowl of hot oatmeal, brought it to my station, started drizzling soy sauce, sesame oil and added some chopped green onions, like I did at home with mom’s rice jook.
The chefs were looking at me in disbelief and saying to me, “Boy, what the … are you doin’?” in their Southern drawl.
I laughed, licked the bowl clean, and you know, it was not only delicious, but also soothing to my soul. It was my first experience living away from Hawaii, so it felt like home came to me in that bowl for a moment.
The next day, I gave the grits the same treatment; the chefs watched me again in disbelief, shaking their heads at me like I came from another planet because grits is a Southern thang!
Since then, I never eat oatmeal with milk, sugar or fruits. It’s always savory, accompanied with things like miso soup, sardines, kimchi, tsukemono — basically whatever I can find in the kitchen.
On a recent morning, like usual, I took out some steel cut oatmeal and put some water in the pot, always over watering it, because I like it soupy. Nowadays, my kitchen at home is stocked with a variety of things, mostly vegetarian. So when the oatmeal was cooked and still simmering, I added already-cooked kamut — an Egyptian grain — chickpeas and soba groats to the pot. When it was done, I garnished it with pumpkin and sunflower seeds, avocado, beets, akulikuli, fennel tops and pickled purple radish.
I knew I could have stopped at any time and actually laughed at myself with the addition of each ingredient; it would have tasted fine, but I was having fun. Of course, I didn’t forget the shoyu and sesame oil drizzles.
Recently, I went in for a haircut; as usual, the stylist and I talk story as she works. She asked me if I was vegetarian, since she noticed that I have been posting a lot of vegetarian dishes on social media. I replied no, that it’s just what I have at home to cook with most of the time.
She asked if it was hard to cook vegetarian, I said, “It’s not hard to do at all as long as you have stuff around the kitchen, you just assemble with what you have.”
I always have an assortment of beans, nuts, grains, seeds, pickles and produce to work with. In the restaurant, I was the same way. I taught the cooks to just go up and down the line and combine ingredients and components to make something new with what already exists; we also don’t waste anything when we find other uses for one thing.
This morning, I couldn’t help myself, I wanted my breakfast to look more appetizing than just a bowl of oatmeal. It also gets boring just eating it the same way all the time, so it’s good to change up the routine once in a while.
I am wired to tweak things until I am satisfied with how it looks and tastes. I have fun making something out of nothing; I hope you give it a try and go savory on your next bowl of oatmeal!
Chef and restaurateur Alan Wong has wowed diners around the world for decades, and is known as one of the founders of Hawaii Regional Cuisine. Find his column in Crave every first Wednesday.
