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Wheat-Germ Meal Mush

A simple porridge made by boiling wheat germ meal in salted water, served with sugar and butter or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,002 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Wheat-Germ Meal Mush

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the porridge

  1. In a pot, bring 1 quart of water to a boil.

  2. Add a pinch of salt.

  3. Slowly stir in 1 cup of wheat-germ meal.

  4. Boil gently for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with sugar and butter or cream.

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. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Wheat + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,071 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Wheat-germ meal
Thickens the water into porridge as its starches and fibre absorb liquid.
Butter or cream
Adds fat and richness to the finished porridge.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the plain grain flavour.

The step that matters

Slowly stir in the wheat-germ meal. Adding a fine dry meal too quickly to hot water forms clumps as outer particles swell and seal around dry centres. Adding it slowly while stirring separates the particles so each hydrates evenly and the porridge stays 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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