Corn Meal Gruel
Ingredients
Directions
Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil.
Slowly pour in 1 cup of cornmeal while stirring to prevent lumps.
Add salt to taste.
Cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Serve warm.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Forms the thick body of the gruel as its starch gelatinizes in the hot water.
- Boiling water
- Hydrates the cornmeal and carries the heat that cooks its starch into a thick porridge.
The step that matters
Pouring in the cornmeal slowly while stirring. Cornmeal clumps when dumped into hot liquid because the outer grains hydrate and seal before the inside wets. Adding it gradually while stirring disperses the grains so the gruel cooks smooth instead of lumpy.
“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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