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Plum Porridge or Broth

A beef broth flavored with raisins, prunes, currants, spices, and sweetened with sugar, claret, and sack.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum Porridge or Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Boil the beef in 3 gallons of water for 5 hours.

  2. Strain the liquid and skim off the fat.

Make the porridge

  1. Return the liquid to the saucepan and add the raisins, prunes, and currants.

  2. Boil the fruit gently for 1 hour.

  3. Dip the bread crumb into the liquid and beat it smoothly with a fork.

  4. Mix in the pulped prunes, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and mace.

  5. Add this mixture to the soup and boil for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.

Finish and serve

  1. Sweeten with sugar, add a little salt, claret, and sack.

  2. Place the diced bread in a soup tureen, add a piece of meat, pour in the broth, and serve.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Simmers for hours to give the broth its meaty flavour and rich body.
White bread
Absorbs the hot broth and thickens the porridge when beaten smooth.
Stoned raisins
Add sweetness and moisture, softening as they simmer in the broth.
Stewed prunes
Add sweetness and a thick, pulpy body to the porridge.
Powdered cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the broth.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Beating the bread crumb smooth. Bread must be fully soaked in the hot liquid and beaten well, or it forms lumps instead of thickening the broth evenly. Starch in the bread swells as it absorbs liquid, so the texture depends on this step.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, raisin, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, mace, sugar):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, mace, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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