Peptonised Milk Gruel
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the gruel
Make a thick gruel from any farinaceous food you prefer.
Add ½ pint of cold milk to ½ pint of boiling hot gruel.
Peptonise
Stir in the liquor pancreaticus and a pinch of bicarbonate of soda.
Cover the mixture and keep warm for 30 minutes.
Finish and serve
Boil for a few minutes.
Strain.
Serve the gruel.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Thick gruel
- Forms the base body of the dish, carrying the starch the enzyme acts on.
- Fresh milk
- Adds moisture and softness, cooling the boiling gruel to a workable temperature.
- Liquor pancreaticus
- Provides enzymes that partly break down the starch and protein in the gruel.
- Bicarbonate of soda
- Makes the mixture mildly alkaline, which suits the enzymes' activity.
The step that matters
Keeping the mixture warm for 30 minutes. The enzymes work best at a moderate warmth; if the mixture gets too hot they are destroyed, and if it cools too much their action slows. Boiling only after this period stops the enzyme activity.
“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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