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Drink

Oatmeal Water

A simple oat-based drink made by simmering oatmeal in water, then strained and flavored with lemon juice and sweetener.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Oats and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,119 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Oatmeal Water

Ingredients

Directions

Make the oatmeal water

  1. Combine 1 quart of water with 3 oz of coarse oatmeal in a pot.

  2. Simmer gently on the stove for about 2 hours.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve or gravy strainer, pressing well to extract all the goodness.

Finish and serve

  1. If the mixture is too thick, thin it down with additional water or hot milk.

  2. Add lemon juice and sweetener to taste.

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. Oats + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,119 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Oats + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together462 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Coarse oatmeal
Releases starch and body into the water, giving the drink its thickness and flavour.
Water
Acts as the cooking liquid that extracts oat starch and flavour during simmering.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the mild oat liquid.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for about 2 hours. Gentle heat lets the oats release starch and flavour slowly without scorching on the bottom of the pot. A hard boil can stick and burn, giving a bitter taste.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oats, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Blueberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oats, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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