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Wheatmeal Sauce

A thickened milk sauce made with wheatmeal, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By T. R. Allinson · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Wheatmeal Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Savoury sauce

  1. Mix milk and water together in equal proportions, add a grated onion, and boil.

  2. Rub a little Allinson fine wheatmeal into a paste with cold water.

  3. Mix this paste with the boiling milk and water, and let it thicken.

  4. Add a little pepper and salt to taste.

  5. Eat this with vegetables.

Sweet sauce

  1. Boil 1/2 pint of the milk with sugar.

  2. Mix the wheatmeal smooth in the rest of the milk.

  3. Add this to the boiling milk and keep stirring until the sauce has thickened.

  4. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes.

  5. Strain it through a gravy strainer.

  6. Re-heat, and flavour with vanilla or almond essence.

Cornflour sauce

  1. Boil the milk.

  2. Thicken it with the cornflour previously smoothed with a little water.

  3. Add sugar and vanilla.

  4. Boil up.

  5. Serve with the pudding.

Butter sauce

  1. Bring part of the milk to the boil.

  2. Mix the wheatmeal smooth with the rest.

  3. Add the butter and seasoning.

  4. Thicken the sauce.

  5. Let it cook gently a few minutes after adding the meal.

  6. Serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

442Calories
15 gProtein
31 gFat
27 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By T. R. Allinson. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Allinson fine wheatmeal
Starch that thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Milk
Liquid base that the thickener swells in and gives the sauce body and richness.
Eggs
Enrich the sauce and help it set when heated gently.

The step that matters

Mix the wheatmeal smooth before adding it to the hot milk. Starch granules clump into lumps if dropped into hot liquid dry or unsmoothed. Mixing them into a cold or room-temperature paste first lets them disperse, then the heat swells them evenly into a smooth sauce.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, cream, butter, egg, pepper):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Pecansfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, cream, butter, egg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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