Name: Oatmeal Drink
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons common oatmeal; 3 quarts cold water; brown sugar to taste; optional: cocoa, cloves, lemon peel, citric acid or lemon juice

Why it works: Sugar and cocoa work together. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 956 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Oatmeal Drink

Ingredients

3 tablespoons common oatmeal
3 quarts cold water
brown sugar to taste
optional: cocoa, cloves, lemon peel, citric acid or lemon juice

Directions

Make the drink

Combine oatmeal and cold water in a pot.
Bring to a boil and cook for 30 minutes.
For flavor, add cloves and lemon peel while boiling.
Strain if desired.
Sweeten with brown sugar while hot.

Variations

For a cocoa variation, mix equal parts oatmeal drink and cocoa.
For a cold drink, add ½ ounce citric acid per 2-3 gallons or use lemon juice.

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.

Sugar + cocoatop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together956 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Common oatmeal: Its starch thickens the water and gives the drink its body and cloudy look.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and a molasses note that rounds out the oat flavor.

“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.