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Datmeal Gruel

A thin porridge made by boiling coarsely ground oatmeal in water, then flavoured with butter, wine, nutmeg or salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,645 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Datmeal Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. If using fine oatmeal, mix it with a little cold water to form a thick batter before adding it to boiling water.

  2. Put the grits into a pint of boiling water.

Cook

  1. Let it boil gently, stirring often until it reaches your desired thickness.

  2. Stir continuously while boiling, lifting the spoon gently up and down.

  3. Let the gruel fall slowly back into the pan.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the mixture and add butter, wine, nutmeg, or any preferred flavoring while warm.

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. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Wine + nutmegtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Grits (coarsely ground oatmeal)
Thickens the water into a gruel as the starch cooks and swells.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the warm gruel.
Wine
Adds acidity and a mild flavor that brightens the gruel.

The step that matters

Adding fine oatmeal to boiling water. Fine oatmeal dropped into hot water can clump into lumps. Mixing it first with a little cold water into a smooth batter lets the particles disperse evenly before they hit the heat, so the gruel thickens smoothly.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, wine. 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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