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Plum Porridge

A beef broth thickened with flour or rice, sweetened with raisins, currants, and spices, finished with lemon and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum Porridge

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the shin of beef in a large pot of water until very tender.

  2. Remove the meat and strain the broth back into the pot.

  3. Thicken the broth with flour or ground rice.

Add the fruit and spices

  1. Add the raisins and currants, if using, and cook until the fruit is swollen and tender.

  2. Stir in cloves, mace, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and add salt, sugar, lemon juice, and wine, if desired.

  2. Boil broken crackers in the mixture for a few minutes to improve the dish.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Slow boiling makes the meat tender and gives the broth a rich, savoury body.
Flour or ground rice
Starch thickens the broth so it becomes a porridge rather than a thin liquid.
Raisins
Cooking softens and plumps the fruit, adding sweetness and body to the porridge.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, spiced flavours.
Broken crackers
Absorb liquid and soften, adding further body and thickening to the porridge.

The step that matters

Thickening the broth. Starch must be fully hydrated and cooked through to thicken smoothly. Adding it to liquid that is not simmering, or adding too much at once, can leave lumps or a pasty texture.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, raisin, clove, mace, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, raisin, clove, mace, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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