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Gr&H&M Mush, or Porridge

A simple porridge made by boiling water and stirring in Graham flour, then seasoning with salt, sugar, and optional cream or dates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Gr&H&M Mush, or Porridge

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil.

  2. Gradually stir in 1 cup of unsifted Graham flour until desired consistency is reached.

  3. Boil for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

  4. Add salt and sugar to taste.

  5. Serve with cream or milk if desired.

  6. Stir in dates just before removing from heat for added flavor.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + datestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + datestop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together985 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Graham flour
Its bran and germ thicken the water into a porridge and give it a nutty, wholesome flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the flour gradually. Flour dumped in at once clumps and forms lumps that are hard to smooth out. Stirring it in slowly while the water is boiling lets each grain hydrate evenly, giving a smooth porridge.

Swap the dates

The recipe marks dates as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, cream):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, cream. 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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