When I had initially jumped on the oatmeal bandwagon I had fully intended to go the steel-cut route. Then when the time finally came to stock up, I looked at the shelf and saw a tiny little satchel of steel-cut oats on the shelf for $3, and just below it a giant drum of rolled oats complete with a fold-out hand truck for getting it home all for the low-low price of $2 and, well, the steel-cut oats stayed on the shelf.
This week, though, I finally decided that I needed some more excitement in my oatmeal life, and finally shelled out the $3 for the tiny satchel. The verdict? Not too shabby.
The flavour is as oaty as you might expect it, perhaps a bit more than the run of the mill rolled oats, but the real difference is the texture. The steel-cut oats maintain a lot more of their individuality, and provide a very interesting almost popping sensation when you chew on them. There's also a fair bit of distinction, in the finished product, between the oats themselves and the creamy liquid they're suspended in, but no so much as to make it seem soupy or separated.
I think I'll still stick with the rolled oats for the majority of my oatmealing, at least in the short term, as the steel-cut do take longer to cook. I'll probably split it out by doing rolled oats on weekdays and steel-cut on the weekends. I think that should be sufficient to banish my oatmeal-ennui.
