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Indian Meal Gruel

A simple gruel made from meal, water, salt, and cream, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Indian Meal Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the meal with cold water in a bowl.

  2. Stir this mixture into the boiling water.

Simmer

  1. Once it boils, reduce the heat and simmer for 2 hours.

  2. Add the salt and simmer for an additional 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot by adding a tablespoon of cream to a cup of the gruel.

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

Meal
Forms the thickened body of the gruel as its starch gelatinizes during long simmering.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, smoother mouthfeel to the finished gruel.

The step that matters

Stirring the meal into the boiling water. Meal added to cold or lukewarm liquid can clump into lumps that are hard to smooth out. Mixing it with cold water first creates a slurry that disperses evenly when stirred into the boiling water.

“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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