Why it works: Corn and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,168 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Water Gruel
Ingredients
Directions
Boil water in a pot.
Add corn or oatmeal and cook for 10 to 15 minutes.
Strain the mixture.
Season with salt and sugar to taste.
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
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.
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Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,168 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Corn or oatmeal
- Starch that thickens the water into a light, gruel-like liquid as it cooks.
The step that matters
Cooking the corn or oatmeal for 10 to 15 minutes. Cooking long enough lets the starch granules swell and gelatinize, which thickens the liquid and softens the grain. Too short a cook leaves the starch raw and the texture gritty and thin.
“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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