Why it works: Milk and lime work together. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 700 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Peptonised Milk Gruel
Ingredients
Directions
Make the peptoned milk
Dilute the milk with the lime water or the bicarbonate solution.
Add the liquor pancreaticus to the mixture.
Set the jug aside in a warm room for 3 to 4 hours.
Serve
Once ready, the milk will have a slightly bitter taste.
Serve cold alone or with soda water, or warm and sweetened for infants.
If storing, boil the mixture, but it is better to use it without boiling.
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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Milk + limetop 27% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together700 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Forms the base liquid that the pancreatic enzymes break down during standing.
- Liquor pancreaticus
- Pancreatic enzymes that partly break down milk proteins and fats, producing the peptoned flavour.
- Lime water
- Alkaline liquid that dilutes the milk and softens curd formation.
The step that matters
Leaving the mixture to stand in a warm room. Enzyme action depends on warmth and time, so the milk must stand for the stated period to develop its peptoned character. Boiling afterwards would halt the enzymes, so the mixture is best used unboiled.
“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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