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Indian-meal Porridge

A porridge made from Indian meal and wheat flour, cooked with water and milk, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Indian-meal Porridge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wet the Indian meal and wheat flour to a paste with cold water.

  2. Set the boiling water over the fire and add the salt.

Cook the porridge

  1. Stir in the wet paste and cook for 20 minutes, stirring at intervals.

  2. Add the milk and let it simmer for 10 minutes, stirring from the bottom 4 or 5 times.

  3. Strain through a colander to remove lumps.

  4. Sweeten slightly.

Serve

  1. Serve warm.

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 + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Forms the thick body of the porridge as its starch cooks and swells.
Wheat flour
Adds extra starch to thicken the porridge and give it a smoother body.
Fresh milk
Adds richness and creaminess, softening the porridge's flavor and texture.

The step that matters

Wet the meal into a smooth paste before adding it. Dry starch dropped into hot liquid clumps as its outer layer gelatinizes first and traps the dry center. Mixing it into a paste with cold water first lets each particle disperse evenly, so the porridge cooks smooth and lump-free.

“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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