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Buttermilk Pap

A simple buttermilk porridge made by boiling buttermilk, adding an egg‑flour mixture, and serving hot with sugar or syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Buttermilk Pap

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the buttermilk in a pot.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg, salt, and flour together.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the boiling buttermilk.

  2. Boil and stir vigorously for a few minutes.

  3. Serve hot with sugar or syrup.

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).

  2. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 porridge its tangy flavour.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the porridge as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the buttermilk into a porridge as it boils.

The step that matters

Pour the egg mixture into the boiling buttermilk while stirring vigorously. Adding the egg and flour mixture to hot liquid while stirring keeps it from clumping into lumps. Continued vigorous stirring during the boil keeps the starch dispersed so the porridge thickens evenly.

“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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