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Pasquotank Wheat Erumenty

A thick wheat porridge cooked with eggs, sugar, flour, butter, and milk, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Pasquotank Wheat Erumenty

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the wheat

  1. The day before preparation, pick, wash, and break the wheat in a mortar until dry.

  2. At 4 AM, place the wheat in a clean pot with 1 gallon of water and boil steadily until 10 AM, stirring occasionally. If the water reduces, add more from the kettle.

  3. Ensure the wheat is very soft.

Make the porridge

  1. In a bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, flour, and butter.

  2. Transfer 3 quarts of the cooked wheat to a warm porcelain kettle, avoiding scraping the bottom.

  3. On the fire, stir in the egg mixture and 3 quarts of milk. Bring to a boil while stirring continuously to prevent curdling.

Serve

  1. Serve in large bowls, topping with bits of butter and a sprinkle of pulverized allspice.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Wheat
Forms the thick body of the porridge as its starch swells and softens during long boiling.
Eggs
Thicken the porridge when heated and add richness and structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the texture of the porridge.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the savory-leaning flavor of the wheat.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir continuously while bringing the egg mixture to a boil. Eggs thicken when heated but can curdle if they overheat or sit against the hot pot bottom. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the mixture thickens smoothly.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, egg, sugar, flour, butter, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, egg, sugar, flour, butter, milk. 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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