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Savory Porridge

A broth-based porridge made with leftover meat, onions, herbs, celery, bread crumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Savory Porridge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Chop the leftover meat extremely fine and rub it through a coarse sieve or colander.

  2. Skim the fat from the broth in which the mutton was boiled.

  3. Add the chopped onion, sweet herbs, and celery to the broth.

  4. Boil the mixture down to 3 pints.

  5. Strain the mixture and season it.

Thicken and serve

  1. When it boils again, stir in the chopped meat and dry bread crumbs.

  2. Cook covered for 20 minutes.

  3. Add the butter rolled in flour and minced parsley.

  4. Stew for 5 minutes before serving.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Leftover meat
Provides the savory meat flavor and body of the porridge.
Dry bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the broth into a porridge texture.
Butter rolled in flour
Adds richness and, with the flour, helps thicken the liquid smoothly.
Onion
Contributes savory sweetness and aroma to the broth as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Adding the butter rolled in flour. Flour-coated butter must be stirred into a simmering liquid so it disperses without lumps. Added to a cold or vigorously boiling mixture, the flour can clump and thicken unevenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, celery, bread, butter, flour, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, celery, bread, butter, flour, parsley. 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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