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To Hake Gruel

A hot gruel made with cornmeal or oatmeal, butter, milk, bread, spices, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Hake Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gruel

  1. Pour hot water into a clean pot over a brisk fire.

  2. When it boils, add cornmeal or oatmeal and mix until smooth.

  3. Add a small lump of butter and stir for about 30 minutes.

  4. Add sweet milk and bring to a boil again.

  5. Add the bread pieces and let it boil for some time.

Season and serve

  1. Season with black pepper, salt, nutmeg, and more butter.

  2. Stir in French brandy if desired.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 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

Cornmeal or oatmeal
Thickens the water into a smooth, porridge-like gruel as the starch cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the gruel.
Sweet milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the gruel's flavor.
Bread pieces
Soak up liquid and add body, thickening the gruel further as they break down.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornmeal or oatmeal smooth before cooking. Dry starch dropped into boiling liquid clumps quickly. Mixing it smooth first, then stirring while it thickens, keeps the gruel even in texture.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, bread, pepper, brandy):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, bread, pepper, brandy. 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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