Cornmeal Gruel
Ingredients
Directions
Make the gruel
Bring one quart of water to a boil.
Add one teaspoonful of salt.
Mix two tablespoonfuls of cornmeal and one tablespoonful of flour with one-half cupful of cold water.
Pour the mixture into the boiling salted water, stirring briskly.
Simmer, covered, for an hour.
Strain and serve
Strain and serve with milk or cream.
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. See the original page.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Swells and thickens as it cooks, giving the gruel its body.
- Flour (in the method)
- Adds extra thickening and helps keep the mixture smooth.
The step that matters
Stirring the cornmeal mixture into the boiling water. Cornmeal mixed with cold water must be added to boiling water while stirring briskly. Otherwise the starch clumps before it can disperse, leaving lumps in the 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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