Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓
Indian Meal Gruel
Ingredients
Directions
In a pot, bring 1 quart of water to a boil.
In a bowl, mix 1 tablespoon of Indian meal with 2 tablespoons of cold water.
Slowly add the Indian meal mixture to the boiling water, stirring constantly.
Boil for 3 minutes, then season with coarse sea salt.
Strain the mixture and serve warm with cream and sugar if desired.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Indian meal
- Cornmeal thickens the water as its starch swells with heat, giving the gruel body.
The step that matters
Slowly add the Indian meal mixture to the boiling water, stirring constantly.. Cornmeal starch clumps when it hits hot liquid all at once. Adding it slowly while stirring disperses the particles so they hydrate evenly and the gruel stays smooth.
“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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