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Oatmeal Porridge

A simple porridge made by simmering oatmeal in water and milk, seasoned with salt or sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Oatmeal Porridge

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the porridge

  1. Boil 1 pint of water in a pot.

  2. Slowly sprinkle in the oatmeal while stirring continuously.

  3. Once combined, simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serve

  1. Serve in a bowl, adding salt or sugar to taste.

  2. Accompany with a jug of hot milk.

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. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Oatmeal
Its starch absorbs water and swells as it cooks, thickening the liquid into a porridge.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a soft, rich flavour to the finished porridge.

The step that matters

Sprinkling in the oatmeal slowly while stirring. Oat starch hydrates on contact with hot water and can form lumps if added in a clump. Adding it gradually and stirring continuously spreads the grains out so they hydrate evenly and the porridge cooks 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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