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Cracked Wheat Mush

A cereal porridge made by boiling cracked or rolled wheat in salted water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Cracked Wheat Mush

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a pot, bring 1 quart of salted water to a boil.

  2. Add ½ cup of cracked or rolled wheat.

  3. Boil for 2 hours, or soak overnight and boil for 1 hour.

Alternative method

  1. For an alternative method, moisten 1¼ cups of cracked wheat with cold water and add ½ teaspoon of salt.

  2. Place the wheat in a muslin bag, leaving space for it to swell.

  3. Put the bag in a small colander and place it in a kettle of boiling water.

  4. Boil for 3 to 4 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with syrup and butter or cream and sugar.

  2. For leftovers, slice and fry when cold.

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

What each ingredient does

Cracked or rolled wheat
Forms the body of the porridge, swelling and softening as it cooks in water.
Salted water
Hydrates the wheat so its starch gelatinises and the grain becomes tender.

The step that matters

Leaving space in the muslin bag for the wheat to swell. Cracked wheat absorbs water and expands substantially as it cooks. If packed tightly in the bag, it cannot swell evenly, so parts stay dry or dense while others become stuck together.

“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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