Why it works: Sugar and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 32% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,638 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Grit Gruel
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Combine ¼ cup grits with 1 quart of water in a clean saucepan.
Add ½ teaspoon of coarse sea salt.
Cook
Bring to a boil, stirring constantly for about 30 minutes to prevent burning.
Serve
Serve with sugar, toast, bread and butter, or biscuit as desired.
Make fresh every other day in cold weather, daily in hot weather.
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.
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Sugar + breadtop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,638 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Grits
- Corn grains that release starch and thicken the water into a creamy porridge as they cook.
The step that matters
Stirring constantly while the grits come to a boil. Grits are dense and settle quickly, so without constant stirring they stick and scorch on the bottom of the pan. Stirring also keeps the starch dispersed so the porridge cooks evenly and turns 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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