Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Indian Meal Gruel
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the cornmeal with a little cold water.
Stir the mixture into the boiling water.
Boil for 30 minutes.
Strain.
Season with salt.
Add cream or milk and sugar if desired.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Its starch thickens the water into a smooth, porridge-like gruel as it cooks.
The step that matters
Mix the cornmeal with cold water before adding it to the boiling water. Cornmeal stirred directly into hot water clumps as its starch gelatinises unevenly on contact. Mixing it first with a little cold water spreads the particles out so they disperse evenly and the gruel cooks 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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