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India N-mea L Gruel

A gruel made by boiling Indian meal in well-salted water, served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,481 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

India N-mea L Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gruel

  1. Blend 2 tablespoons of Indian meal with a little cold water.

  2. Bring 1 quart of well-salted water to a boil.

  3. Stir in the meal.

  4. Cook for a few minutes.

  5. Reduce heat.

  6. Let it boil gently for 4 hours, stirring occasionally.

  7. Do not cover the pot.

Thicken and serve

  1. For a thicker gruel, blend 1 teaspoon of flour with cold water.

  2. Stir the flour mixture into the boiling gruel.

  3. Boil for 3 minutes while stirring constantly.

  4. Serve with a little cream added.

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. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Cornmeal swells and thickens the water as it cooks, forming the gruel's body.
Flour
Adds extra starch that thickens the gruel further when stirred into boiling liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, soft mouthfeel to the finished gruel.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the boiling gruel. Starch clumps into lumps if added to hot liquid without being blended smooth in cold water first. Stirring constantly while it boils keeps it dispersed and lets the starch thicken evenly.

“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.