Cereal and Cereal Gruels
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Spread the grains on a clean table and remove any foreign substances.
Wash the whole grains with two or three changes of cold water.
Cook
Fill the lower part of a double boiler one-third full of boiling water.
Add salt to the boiling water.
Gradually stir in the cereal to prevent burning.
Steam the mixture in the double boiler until thoroughly cooked.
For oatmeal, cook for three hours or more for better flavor.
Serve
Serve the gruel very hot, thinned with water, milk, or cream if desired.
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
What each ingredient does
- Whole grains or specially prepared flour
- Form the body of the gruel as they swell and gelatinize during long steaming.
- Water
- Hydrates the grains so their starches can soften and thicken into a gruel.
The step that matters
Gradually stir in the cereal to prevent burning.. Adding grain all at once can clump and settle on the pot base, where it scorches. Sprinkling it in slowly while stirring keeps the particles dispersed and hydrated, so the mixture cooks evenly.
“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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