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Drink

Ceeam of Oat Meal

A warm milk-based drink thickened with oat meal flour, flavored with cinnamon, lemon peel, coriander, mace, and sweetened with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ceeam of Oat Meal

Ingredients

Directions

Make the oatmeal cream

  1. In a saucepan, bring 2 quarts of milk to a boil.

  2. Mix 6 ounces of oat meal flour with a little cold milk, then add to the boiling milk, stirring well.

  3. Add the cinnamon stick, lemon peel, coriander seeds, salt, and mace.

  4. Cover and let it cook slowly for 20 minutes.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain through a fine sieve and return to the saucepan to keep warm without boiling.

  2. Stir in powdered sugar to sweeten until dissolved.

  3. Serve in small cups.

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. Lemon + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cinnamon + coriandertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the oat flour thickens into a smooth cream.
Oat meal flour
Starch thickens the hot milk as it cooks, giving the cream its body.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness that dissolves easily into the warm cream.

The step that matters

Adding the oat flour to the boiling milk. Oat flour mixed only with cold milk and added to boiling liquid can clump. Stirring well while adding it spreads the starch evenly so it thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, cinnamon, lemon, coriander, sugar):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, cinnamon, lemon, coriander, sugar. 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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