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Barley or Oatmeal Gruel

A simple infant gruel made from barley or oatmeal, water, salt, milk, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and milk work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 598 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Barley or Oatmeal Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

Make the decoction

  1. Boil the barley or oatmeal in water with a pinch of salt for 12 to 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a linen cloth to achieve a thin consistency for very young infants.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix equal parts of the decoction with boiled and skimmed cow's milk and sugar.

  2. Serve the mixture at a temperature of 80-90°F.

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. Barley + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Barley + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Milk and sugar 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

Barley or oatmeal
Thickens the liquid as its starch cooks, giving the gruel body.
Boiled and skimmed cow's milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness-carrying richness to the thin gruel.

“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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