Skirlie with Kale

Skirlie is a Scottish dish made from oatmeal fried with fat, onions and seasoning. The "skirl" indicates the noise made by frying the ingredients.

I always use olive oil, sometimes with some butter to fry the onions and oatmeal or oats. Mum and gran always used oatmeal but since moving to Australia I use quick cook oats as oatmeal is difficult to find here (or at least it used to be), sometimes I give the oats a whizz in the food processor to make them smaller, similar 'ish' to oatmeal and quicker to cook.

My family love skirlie, there never seems to be enough to satisfy the 'skirlie' craving, doesn't matter how much I make 😜, I can't blame them though, I could eat an entire pan full by myself 😋.

I had some cooked kale leftover which I added to some fresh made skirlie, it was an instant hit, will definitely make this again, but I find mixing skirlie with any sort of veg works great, I added it to my bubble and squeak here. It is such an easy and quick side dish to make.

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter (optional)
1/2 - 1 onion, finely diced
100 g oats or oatmeal (approx)
pinch of salt
40 g cooked kale

Method

1.  Heat oil and butter together in a pan over a medium heat. Add onions, cook, stirring occasionally until softened.

2.  Add oats or oatmeal, stirring until oil/butter is fully absorbed. Season with salt. Cook, stirring every so often so it doesn't burn, for about 5-6 minutes. Add cooked kale, continue to cook until kale is heated through. Serve with anything.

It is usually a brown onion but I only had red onions, it tasted every bit as tasty

A tasty side dish that can be served and enjoyed with any meat.