Skip to main content
Main

Gruel

A simple oatmeal gruel made by boiling water, adding oatmeal, and optionally sweetening with molasses or sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Gruel

Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

  1. Bring 1 pint of water to a boil.

  2. Stir in 1½ oz. of oatmeal and reduce heat.

  3. Cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  4. If desired, sweeten with 1 oz. of molasses or sugar and add salt to taste.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Its starch thickens the water as it cooks, turning it into a thin, porridge-like gruel.
Molasses or sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper flavor to the finished gruel.

The step that matters

Stirring the oatmeal into boiling water. Oatmeal added to water can clump, and stirring while it cooks keeps the starch dispersed so the gruel thickens evenly rather than forming lumps or settling on the bottom of the pan.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes