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Mulled Buttermilk

A warm buttermilk thickened with flour and stirred until grainy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Mulled Buttermilk

Ingredients

Directions

Heat the buttermilk

  1. Place the buttermilk in a bowl and set it in a saucepan of cold water over the fire. Stir slowly while heating.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix the flour with a little buttermilk or water until smooth.

  2. When the buttermilk is slightly warmer than lukewarm, stir in the thickening.

  3. Continue stirring until it looks grainy as it runs from the spoon.

  4. Remove from heat and keep stirring for 5 to 10 minutes.

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

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Forms the liquid base and gives the drink its tangy, slightly sour flavour.
Flour
Its starch swells when heated, thickening the buttermilk to a light body.

The step that matters

Heat gently and keep stirring as it thickens. Buttermilk is acidic and its proteins can curdle or separate if it gets too hot too fast. Stirring keeps the flour starch evenly dispersed so lumps do not form.

“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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