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To Make Thick Gruel

A thick oatmeal gruel made by mixing oatmeal with cold water, adding boiling water, boiling, and straining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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To Make Thick Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a quart basin, mix the oatmeal and cold water until well combined.

  2. Gradually add the boiling water, stirring continuously.

Cook and strain

  1. Transfer the mixture to a clean saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

  3. Strain through a fine sieve into a basin.

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

What each ingredient does

Fine oatmeal
Provides the starch that thickens the liquid as it cooks into a gruel.
Boiling water
Hydrates the oatmeal starch and brings the mixture up to cooking temperature.

The step that matters

Boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Oatmeal starch settles and sticks to the base of the pan quickly, so constant stirring prevents scorching and keeps the gruel smooth while the starch swells and thickens.

“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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