Skip to main content
Main

Cream of Wheat, Etc

A thickened wheat-germ meal cooked with eggs, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Wheat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,002 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream of Wheat, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the porridge

  1. In a pot, combine boiling water and salt.

  2. Stir in wheat-germ meal and cook for 3-4 minutes.

  3. Transfer to a double boiler and keep warm.

Cook the eggs

  1. Beat the eggs until fluffy, then season with pepper and salt.

  2. Fold the eggs into the cooked meal.

  3. Melt butter in a hot frying pan and pour in the mixture.

  4. Cook like a French omelet until set.

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. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

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

  2. Wheat + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together984 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Wheat + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Wheat-germ meal
Provides the body and nutty grain flavour that make up the creamed base.
Eggs
Set when cooked, binding the mixture and giving it a rich, tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the mixture brown lightly in the pan.

The step that matters

Cook like a French omelet until set. Egg proteins coagulate at moderate heat, so cooking too hot or too long makes the eggs tough and dry. Cook gently until just set so the mixture stays creamy.

“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.

You might also like

Wheat GruelWheat Gruel6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes