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Milk Porridge

A sweetened milk porridge with raisins, thickened with corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Milk Porridge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the raisins

  1. Boil the chopped raisins in a little water for 20 minutes until the water evaporates.

Make the porridge

  1. Add the milk and bring to a boil.

  2. Mix the corn starch with a little cold milk to form a thin paste.

  3. Add the paste to the boiling mixture.

  4. Boil for an additional 10 minutes.

  5. Season with salt.

  6. Strain before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Raisin + corntop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide sweetness and body as they soften and release their flavour into the porridge.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the porridge its creamy, rich texture.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the porridge its smooth, body-filled consistency.

The step that matters

Adding the corn starch paste. Corn starch must be mixed into cold milk first so it disperses evenly; added directly to hot liquid it clumps. Once the paste goes into the boiling mixture, the starch gelatinises and thickens the porridge.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, corn):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, corn. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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