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Wholemeal Porridge

A simple porridge made from wholemeal flour, water, salt, and served with sugar, treacle, milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Wholemeal Porridge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the porridge

  1. In a bowl, mix a little cold water with the wholemeal to make a thin batter.

  2. Boil the remaining water and pour it over the batter, stirring continuously.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a pan and boil, stirring frequently until it thickens.

  4. Allow to simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with sugar, treacle, and milk or cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Wholemeal
Provides the starch and body that thicken the porridge as it cooks.
Water
Hydrates the flour so its starch can swell and gelatinise into a thick texture.

The step that matters

Mixing the batter before adding the boiling water. Mixing the wholemeal with cold water first separates the grains so they do not clump when hot water is added. Stirring continuously while pouring helps the starch disperse evenly and avoids lumps.

“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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