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Patent Barley Gruel

A simple gruel made from patent barley flour, water, and optional sugar or spirit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and flour work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 582 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Patent Barley Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mix the Patent Barley flour and salt with cold water to form a smooth paste, thick as cream.

  2. Add the boiling water (or milk) to the paste and stir well.

  3. Transfer the mixture to an enamelled saucepan and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring continuously with a wooden or silver spoon.

  4. Add sugar or spirit to taste, if desired.

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. Barley + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Barley + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Patent barley flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells with heat, giving the gruel its body.

The step that matters

Simmer while stirring continuously. Barley starch can settle and scorch on the base of the pan, and constant stirring keeps it dispersed and smooth while it thickens as it simmers.

“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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