Why it works: Cream and wheat work together. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 681 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
Cream of Wheat
Ingredients
Directions
Make the porridge
In a double boiler, measure 4 cups of boiling water and add 1 teaspoon of salt.
Gradually shake in 1 cup of cream of wheat while stirring.
Cook over heat for a few minutes.
Cook and serve
Transfer to the lower part of the double boiler filled with boiling water.
Let it cook for at least one hour.
Serve hot with sugar and 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.
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.
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Cream + wheattop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together681 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cream of wheat
- Its starch thickens with the hot water, forming the porridge's body.
The step that matters
Shaking in the cream of wheat while stirring. Adding the cereal gradually while stirring keeps it from clumping into lumps as it hits the hot water, so it 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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