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Corn Meal Gruel

A simple gruel made from corn meal, water, salt, cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Corn Meal Gruel

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Corn Meal Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gruel

  1. Mix corn meal, salt, and cold water in a bowl.

  2. Add boiling water and simmer slowly for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. In a serving bowl, place cream and sugar.

  2. Strain the gruel into the bowl, stir briefly, and serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

  3. Corn + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn meal
Its starch swells and thickens the liquid as it simmers in hot water.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer, smoother mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the plain corn flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for the full hour. Corn meal starch needs sustained heat in liquid to swell and fully gelatinise. Cutting the simmer short leaves the gruel thin and with a raw, grainy taste.

“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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