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Tomato and Wheatmeal PorRIDGE

A savory porridge made with wheatmeal, pea flour, tomatoes, onion, and optional dried herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato and Wheatmeal PorRIDGE

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the onion and add it to the boiling water.

  2. Sift in the wheatmeal while stirring.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes.

  4. Mix the pea-flour with cold water and add it to the pot.

  5. Stir in the tomatoes gradually.

  6. Cook for 30 minutes, adding dried herbs if desired.

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. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + tomatotop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Coarse wheatmeal
Thickens the water into a porridge and gives it a hearty, grainy body.
Pea-flour
Adds thickening power and a smooth, binding texture to the porridge.
Tomatoes
Contribute moisture, acidity and a fresh tomato flavour to the porridge.
Spanish onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma as it softens in the boiling water.

The step that matters

Stirring in the wheatmeal. Sifting the wheatmeal in while stirring keeps it from clumping into lumps as it hydrates. Adding it all at once or without stirring lets dry starch cluster and cook unevenly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, flour):

  1. Okrafits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, flour. 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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