Skip to main content
Main

Datmeal Gruel

A simple oatmeal gruel made with coarse oatmeal, boiling water, butter, wine, nutmeg, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,645 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Datmeal Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gruel

  1. Put the oatmeal into a pot of boiling water.

  2. Boil gently, stirring often, until it thickens to your desired consistency.

  3. Stir continuously while boiling, lifting the spoon gently up and down, and let the gruel fall back into the pot slowly.

  4. If using fine oatmeal, mix it with a little cold water to form a thick batter before adding to boiling water.

Strain and season

  1. Strain the mixture while warm.

  2. Add butter, wine, nutmeg, and salt 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. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Wine + nutmegtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Coarse oatmeal
Forms the body of the gruel as its starch thickens in the boiling water.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished gruel.
Wine
Adds acidity and a bright flavour that balances the oats.

The step that matters

Stirring while the oatmeal boils. Oatmeal starch settles and scorches on the bottom of the pot if it is not stirred often. Stirring keeps the grains suspended and the texture even, and a thick batter made with cold water first helps fine oatmeal avoid clumping when it hits the boiling water.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, wine. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes